Seoul Declaration

Seoul Declaration

80 participants from 5 countries and 1 EU organization.

Speakers:

Mika Iba (NESSFE, Japan)
Micheal Quigley (COPA-COGECA, EU)
Korean representatives: Park, Jung Hee (Korean Women Environment Center)
Yeon, Je Eun (Korean NGO Union)
Park, Hong Soo (Korea Advanced Farmers Federation)
Park, Byung-Kok (Rural Leadership Central Association)
Jung, Jin Yong (Korean Organic Farming Association)
Pyun, Jeong Oak (Korean Women Farmers Association)
Kang, Chun Sung (The Committee of Korean Farmers)

Each presentation was focused on impacts of Globalisation, Free Trade of Food and Agriculture, and / or challenges and issues that farmer and citizens/consumers are facing at present. After very lively discussions on various topics including human right aspects of food and agriculture, corporate control over seeds, genetic patenting and bio-safety protocol, and increased food insecurity and environmental deterioration particularly in Korea, the Workshop agreed to adopt the attached Declaration.

Seoul Declaration On the Farmers' Right Against Globalization

We, the undersigned Asian and European NGOs and CSOs, participating in the ASEM 2000 People's Forum Workshop on "Farmers Rights, Struggle Against Globalization", reaffirm our support to farmers' right to land, seed and livelihood, and their right to cultivate farmland and promote the multi-functionality of agriculture.

We express our serious concerns that the neo-liberal globalization promoted by the WTO, IMF and World Bank, is inflicting a severe deterioration upon farmers' inalienable rights.

Concluding the ASEM2000 People's Forum Workshop on "Farmers Rights, Struggle against Globalization", we took particular note of the adverse effects of globalization and trade liberalization on farmers' rights, among others,

1. Through structural adjustment programs and foreign investment liberalization, the WTO, IMF and World Bank have promoted the control of transnational corporations (TNCs) over food system through commercialization and industrialization of agriculture. In this process, the small subsistence farmers and peasants were driven out of land and made many of them landless paid farm workers for large corporate farms, resulting in hindering a genuine agrarian reform in developing countries that would ensure farmers' right to land.

2. The WTO, through the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), allows ownership of life including genetic resources such as seeds. As a result, farmers' right to conserve, reproduce and plant seeds, while denying collective ownership of farmers, now the invaluable heritage of farmers' efforts, is seriously imperilled by bio piracy of the TNCs. We applaud that the recent inquiries and actions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the balance of rights between those of promoted by the TRIPs Agreement and the broader human rights of people and communities, including farmers and indigenous peoples worldwide.

3. The TNCs' profit driven schemes have now resulted in development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) whose impacts on human health and ecosystem have yet to be tested. With over 70% of GMO crop seeds in the hands of less than 5 global TNCs, farmers right to conserve seeds and to grow safe food is threatened.

4. The WTO Agreements forced countries to implement radical agricultural trade liberalization and reduce their agriculture from a multi-dimensional life industry to a production-oriented one-dimensional one. The blind liberalization of trade in agriculture without giving due consideration to various beneficial functions generated by agriculture is undermining the multi-functionality of agriculture including environmental preservation, food security, and rural viability.

5. By coercing developing countries into implementing structural adjustment and reducing agricultural support and protection, the WTO, IMF and World Bank have aggravated the poverty and vulnerability of small subsistence farmers and deprived them of their right to cultivate farmland, ultimately jeopardizing their livelihoods as human being.

We consider it intolerable and unacceptable that farmers' rights are threatened on an unprecedented scale by the indiscriminate globalization and unbalanced agricultural trade liberalization. We believe only family farmers can ensure local food security by producing safe and nutritious food supported by local consumers trust.

Declaring that we are determined to make every possible effort to resist globalization and trade liberalization and protect farmers' rights from them in firm solidarity between the Asian and European NGOs and CSOs taking part in the ASEM People's Forum: People's Action and Solidarity Challenging Globalization, we, therefore,

1. Call upon the WTO and all governments to design and implement policies to ensure farmers' right to land, seed and basic livelihood, and their right to cultivate farmland and to take concrete measures to promote the multi-functionality of agriculture, based on individually managed family farms.
2. Urge the WTO to bring to a halt any additional negotiations on further liberalization of agricultural trade and foreign investment and to ban patent right on life form and to amend the TRIPs Agreement to recognize the right of farmers to seed and prevent the bio piracy of the TNCs.
3. Demand that the IMF and World Bank stop imposing developing countries to implement structural adjustment policies subject to their financial loans and development assistance.
4. Call upon the TNCs to immediately stop their monopoly over the seeds, agricultural inputs, food production and distribution that have been distorting the world food provisions and prices causing difficulties, especially among small farmers in developing countries.

ASEM People's Forum - Agricultural Workshop
18 October 2000