Singing a melodious Malay song calling women to struggle and strive together, the Asia Pacific Women’s Conference against APEC was launched on 8th November this year in Kuala Lumpur. The Theme of the Conference was "Women Resist Globalization: Reassert our Rights!"

A paragraph of the Malay song goes: "Gelang Si Paku Gelang, Gelang! Gelang Si Rama Rama, Berjuang, Wanita Berjuang, Marilah berjuang, bersama-sama; Berjuang Wanita berjuang, marilah berjuang bersama-sama. (Come women, let us struggle on together).

The Women’s Conference brought together 182 women from 22 countries representing 104 organizations who attended the Conference to discuss globalization and liberalization and its impact on women. Globalization and trade liberalization have invaded even the remotest villages and have had disastrous impact on women especially rural, indigenous, workers, migrant workers and landless labourers. The Asian crisis brought on by the rapid globalization in financial deregulation and investment has also had a tremendous negative impact on women and has swept back many of the hard fought gains for women.

Women in Asia felt the need to meet and to voice out their anger against globalization and its inherent oppression of women, to share their experiences and to strategize for the future. The Conference discussed a wide range of topics and brought together participants from diverse issue-based networks and organizations as well as from women and people’s movements. The problems and emerging issues confronted by women workers, migrant labourers, farmers, fisherwomen, the urban poor, and sex workers were discussed, and the ensuing human rights violations, violence against women and the criminilastion of emerging pro-democracy movements were seen in the context of the impact of globalization. To confront globalization, the participants agreed would need to be done from many different fronts but in solidarity and starting from individual and organizational issues but with a common perspective and vision. Women also debated, often heatedly, different strategies and perspective but in the end were able to come together to draft a consensus document, that helped consolidate the discussions, stimulate ideas and to voice our struggle, hopes and actions.

For many who attended, the conference, it provided an opportunity to discuss their issues and to network with others who were like-minded and to spend time to strategize together. For some others it was an opportunity to be exposed to the issues. Many participants felt the need to share their experiences, to listen to the experiences and struggles of other women, to be inspired by the strength of women asserting their rights and to know that they not alone in their struggles. Everyday women everywhere are engaged in an ongoing confrontation of globalization, patriarchy and violence, and creating alternative feminist visions.

The Women’s Conference was part of the Asia-Pacific People’s Assembly or APPA as it became known, that was held just prior to the official APEC Leaders Summit. APPA was a unique collaboration of many different, diverse groups working regionally, nationally and locally. The yearlong preparation provided a platform for a deeper analysis of the impact of globalization and the economic crisis not only on the country but also on issues and sectors. APPA also provided an opportunity for strengthening the national organizing of different sectors and issues and to bring in more involvement of grassroots groups. 1998 was also unique in the economic and political development in Malaysia that is unprecedented. Six hundred and thirty six participants, representing 316 organization gathered in Kuala Lumpur for APPA. The solidarity and a common envisioning of different movements from indigenous, farmers and fisherfolks to human rights and labour activists and to women and students provided the depth and breadth of discussions. The debates and discussions during APPA stimulated the mind but the sharing and singing together of songs of struggle, the photo exhibitions, cultural exchanges, the human rights concert and the displays touched the hearts and souls of all those who attended.

Organizing APPA with all its difficulties has been both a challenge and provided much satisfaction. PAN AP was proud to be part of this unique collaboration that went beyond even expectations of participation, issues discussed and solidarity. We share with you in this issue some of the events and discussions of APPA specifically the Issue Forum on Land, Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture organized by PAN AP and ERA Consumer.

Agricultural trade liberalization has in reality hit farmers and consumers in the region, causing increased landlessness, unemployment, food shortages and hunger. Food prices in many countries have gone beyond the reach of the common people while wages have gone down or have been frozen.

Domestic hunger is, in fact, always the outcome of free trade in agriculture. Russia, for example, produced 80 per cent of its food requirements earlier, but today it depends heavily on food imports. And there is hunger in the country.

The people who go hungry as a result of trade agreements are those who can grow their own food if they are allowed to do so. But today’s corporate-controlled totalitarian food system doesn’t allow this. It dictates who should grow what and where. So small farmers, fisherfolk and indigenous people are all affected and uprooted.

Why is this so? This is because greed underlies all trade agreements. All trade agreements merely legitimize organized greed. If you are not greedy, you have no place in this system. For example, as a farmer, if you save and share seeds with your neighbours, you are illegal; if you store foodgrains, you are illegal; and if you try to earn your livelihood through small-scale fishing, you are illegal.

Yet, all this greed is rewarded in this perverted system – through a strange economic justification called "competitive advantages", which is nothing but an apology for rewarding greed. Under this system, Asian countries are told not to grow their own food, but to import "cheap" food from the USA or Europe. Country after country in the Asian region which followed the logic of competitive advantage, and allowed itself to be dependent on "cheap" imported food (dismantling its own local food production and distribution systems), is now paying the price for it. Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and India are some examples.

India, for example, has been told not to grow food but grow shrimps (through aquaculture) and flowers for export, and also to produce meat for export. These are said to offer competitive advantages for India. But every US$ earned from meat export destroys 15 dollars worth of local food economy, and every US$ earned form aquaculture shrimp export destroys 5 to 10 dollars worth of local food economy. And every one-dollar earned from flower exports can buy (through imports) only a quarter of the food that can be grown locally with the same resources.

Recently, India decided to export onions because onions, it was said, offered competitive advantage. Today there is a severe shortage of onions in the Indian market, onion prices have gone through the roof, and India is now "re-importing" onions from West Asia. In all this, Indian exports also destroyed the Sri Lankan onion crop economy.

It is clear by now that trade agreements have only the capacity to destroy but not to provide. Asian countries need about 200 varieties of food crops for an integrated food system. Liberalization of agricultural trade, by promoting intensive monoculture farming, has destroyed biodiversity everywhere. Under the new trade regime, life forms and seeds are also now being owned and controlled by large corporations through patenting. And the U.S. government is working as a slave of these large corporations.

As a handful of corporations and billionaires seek more and more profit for their capital around the world under the new trade agreements, more and more countries will face crisis.

In order to meet the basic food needs of the people, food should be taken out of trade agreements, and food and seeds out of the Intellectual Property Rights system. We must put food rights at the centre of food production in a deeper ethical system of sharing and caring.

Through united action, we can turn the logic of the powers-that-be and the corporations. And each one of us carries the responsibility for this.

Countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand face severe economic and social problems – destabilising households and communities – as they push hard for industrialisation and export of "high-value" crops as part of trade liberalization policies. Meanwhile, local food production has been neglected.

Food is not merely a commodity – it is a source of livelihood and survival for millions in this region. Food is also a source of identity and the essence of culture for communities. Conversely, trade liberalization has had severe impacts on food security in the region. Let us look at the experience of some of these countries.

In the pursuit of its Vision 2020, Malaysia put all its energies into industrialisation, embraced trade liberalisation policies, and in the process neglected its agriculture. The idea was to build up its ‘comparative advantage’ in industries and manufactured goods in order to be able to compete on the international markets. In agriculture, the focus has been to grow ‘high-value export crops’ and open local markets to imported ‘cheap’ foods. Where once food self-sufficiency was a national priority, the 1992 National Agricultural Policy reduced self-sufficiency levels to 65 per cent. Farmers were moved from rural lands to urban areas to work in industries, and 80 per cent of the cultivated land was set aside for export crops.

As the financial crisis hit Malaysia, its currency, the Ringgit (RM), dropped in value by 40 per cent against the US$. Last year, the national food import bill was in deficit of RM4.71 billion. Cereals contributed 48 per cent to the deficit; sugar contributed 16 per cent, and dairy and livestock products and vegetables, the rest. Food exports amounted to RM5.3 billion last year, compared with RM10 billion in imports, while another RM1.42 billion worth of agriculture inputs were imported.

Malaysia, with a population of only 20 million, had accounted for 3 per cent of the global imports of maize and wheat. The 1990 – 1997 import trend showed that food imports from the US recorded the highest annual growth rate at 21.1 per cent due to the rise in the use of, and demand for, livestock products.

Because of the fall in the value of the Ringgit, food prices in 1998 mushroomed from 40 to 60 percent. And Malaysians are now told to start home gardening initiatives. Chicken now costs much more not because Malaysia imports poultry meat, but because the price of chicken feed has increased tremendously. Malaysia imports most of its chicken feed from the U.S. which is the world’s major supplier of animal feed, and has utilised its cheap and heavily subsidised exports to create demand. With the increase in poultry costs, local poultry farmers are being forced out of business. The price increase means chicken which is now an important part of the Malaysia diet, is increasingly out of reach for the poor. Fish and vegetable prices have doubled, and milk prices too have risen.

Compounding the problem, thousands of jobs have been lost – at least half a million job losses are expected this year, and minimum wages have been frozen following the financial crisis – an offshoot of this trend of globalization and trade liberalization.

In the case of Thailand, a major effect of trade liberalization, and the recent economic crises, has been that unemployment was estimated to rise as high as 2.9 million by the 1st half of 1998. And people are returning from the cities to the rural areas, causing greater burden on rural families. By December 1997, 300,000 migrants had returned to the villages putting massive pressure on the already fragile rural social and economic systems. Meanwhile, rice prices have risen contributing enormously to the increasing cost of living. The combined impact of food shortages, increases in food prices and job losses is very severe indeed.

In Indonesia, food prices have risen by 50 – 100 per cent since 1997. Rice has become expensive due to drought-induced shortages. Chicken is now out of reach for most people because producers depend heavily on imported food. Fish, sugar and vegetable prices have doubled. Powdered milk, which is imported, has trebled in price. Poor families are now forced to feed their infants sweetened tea instead of milk.

Cooking oil prices have gone up. Agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April 1998 lifted export quotas of palm oil, and palm producers now sell the oil in the lucrative Singapore market, causing local shortages and increase in prices. IMF reforms also included reductions in government subsidies for food which would cause further rises.

Meanwhile there have been massive layoffs and minimum wages have been frozen, affecting living standards. The government estimated unemployment would reach 13.4 million (15 per cent of the workforce) by March 1999.

Agricultural trade liberalization and the recent financial crisis have severely affected food security (causing food shortages and rising price), and caused massive unemployment in all these countries. Rural women are subject to constraints on many fronts. Apart from cultural factors and the overall depressed macro-economic condition, rural women suffer from multiple disadvantages; they are poor and hence live under the same harsh conditions as their male counterparts; they suffer from cultural and policy biases which prevent them from increasing their productivity; and more importantly, they are often heads of households and are forced to face the same problems as males while also meeting their family obligations as mothers and sisters. Despite their importance in family food production, and agricultural and other economic activities, rural women are seldom allowed to participate effectively in management and in decision-making. Agricultural trade liberalization and the recent financial crisis have severely affected food security (causing food shortages and rising price), and caused massive unemployment in all these countries. Among all sections of the population, women have been hit the hardest. There is greater ‘casualisation’ of women’s labour, and they are also the first to lose jobs. As a result, there is increased migration of women in search of some means of making a living, as well as increased trafficking in women. Above all, violence against women has risen as food availability has decreased in the family.

In this time of crisis, children are also badly affected, and malnutrition is on the rise. In Indonesia, according to UNICEF Director of East Asia and the Pacific, Kul Gautam, hunger was wide spread among children and one form of malnutrition, marasmus – with its tell-tale balloon bellies and skeletal limbs – had now been identified. "UNICEF estimates that about half the children under three are malnourished in Indonesia and a rising proportion are getting really malnourished", he reported.

For the first time in 20 years, Indonesia is beginning to see a few cases of marasmus, a form of malnutrition which happens usually only in famines; in Indonesia alone there are tens of millions of malnourished children. It is expected that perhaps half the people will be below the poverty line within a year and a half because of the economic crisis. UNICEF reports, "Rates of malnutrition are rising enormously among children under three. Many of them are no longer able to afford not just protein rich foods like meat and eggs but even an ordinary diet." Gautam said the very low status accorded women and girls in the region was an important cause of childhood malnutrition.

The IMF has responded with bail-out plans that prescribe more liberalization in recipient countries – for instance, full financial liberalization in Thailand and further liberalisation of agricultural trade (including removal of restrictions on foreign investment in palm oil). In Indonesia and Malaysia, on the other hand, the local response to the food problem is to further intensify agriculture, which means greater use of pesticides and chemicals. This will surely create greater human and environmental problems – every year 25 million workers suffer pesticide poisoning our land, water and air are poisoned, - we are losing our topsoil, our soil fertility, our bio-diversity and the human genius to produce food sustainably.

In addition IMF’s bailout packages demand slashing of all areas of public spending including health, education, agriculture, industry, labour and welfare – key government activities especially in times of rising unemployment, recession and food insecurity.

The whole thrust of trade liberalization in agriculture is to open up Asian food markets for imports and the make us ‘compete’ with the highly subsidised agricultural systems of the industrialised countries and corporations.

For example, the U.S. and EU spend over US$15.7 billion in 1995 subsidising wheat and maize production and this far outstrips financial support available to farmers in Asia. The average subsidy for a U.S. farmer producing wheat is 25 times more than the total average per capita income in the 42 countries classified as low income.

The GATT/WTO agreements will not change this subsidy system because these were written by the U.S. and European Union to continue to subsidise and to dump surpluses in the world market, thus depressing prices.

For example, the largest category of agriculture trade is the cereal markets. It generates US$20 billion annually. Between the U.S. and Europe, it accounts for half of all exports of wheat and wheat flour and the U.S. alone accounts for three-quarters of all the maize exports. Because production in the U.S. and EU dominate world cereal prices, hence the prices against which producers in importing countries have to compete.

Furthermore, the world’s food trade and agriculture input industry is concentrated in the hands of a few multinational corporations. Cargill, a U.S. based company controls 77 per cent of the total cereal trade. About 5 transnational corporations control between them about 90 per cent of the export trade for each of wheat, corn coffee, tea, pineapple, cotton, tobacco, jute and forest products. Ten companies control 40 per cent of the world seed market and another 10 companies in the U.S. and Europe control 82 per cent of the world’s 30 billion (U.S.) agrochemical trade.

At the same time, these agreements require Southern countries to liberalize their food notably by reducing restrictions on imports. Allowing cheap food and products (from a highly subsidised and industrially produced system) to flood the market will force third world farmers to invariably lose out in the competition. In addition, through Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) and the recent restructuring exercise of World Bank/IMF for East Asia, our countries have been told not to subsidise our farmers. So how do our farmers with one or two acres of land compete with highly industrialised, highly subsidised farming systems under corporate control?

The reality is that we cannot. This is a recipe for social, economic and environmental disaster. In fact, it is expected that in Mexico, 3 million farmer families will be forced off their lands because of the effects of a trade agreement that was signed between the U.S., Canada and Mexico called North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the Philippines, annually 15,000 farm families in rice cultivation are expected to lose their land.

But, as experience has shown us, we cannot depend on imports for basic foods, we have to depend on our farmers and our local markets. We cannot gamble our means of existence on market speculation, and food cannot be treated as a mere commodity for ‘competitive’ trade.

Food security requires that we back away from trade liberalization in agriculture and food production, and construct national policies that promote sustainable agriculture (as opposed to unsustainable industrial agriculture) and ensure a high level of public control over agricultural production and distribution. This alone can ensure food for all.

What are the alternatives to this model of development? There are no ready answers. But one thing is clear; there can be no compromise on food security. As Brewster Kneen says, "Grow for your needs and trade your leftovers", we need self-reliant food systems. Kneen continues, "Self-sufficiency does not mean isolation or autonomy, it simply means depending on our food needs on our farmers and the resources available to us rather than being dependent on outsiders and external resources as in imported foods. Self-reliance will require sustainability. It will also mean smaller production units".

In many countries, the farmer-consumer links or Community-supported agriculture are ways in which consumer need for healthy food and ecological producers have local and ready support for their products. These are systems that are a small part of a development alternative.

A quite revolution is happening. As people are slowly realising that the present economic system is unpredictable, volatile and maybe even a mirage, they are questioning the fundamentals of the system. This quite revolution is the ability of small groups of people to envision a different future and to create new economies and societies.

In June, this year South Indian Women were at the forefront of sharing in this revolution. At the Conference on Globalization, more than 100 rural women met to discuss the impact of globalization and their struggles against oppression, violence, exploitation and unsustainable systems of agriculture. They shared their visions of a gender just society, and an ecological and economic sustainable future. They demanded the re-establishment of local markets and for community barter systems that would emphasis meeting community food needs. They called for ownership of land, stewardship and security of tenure. And finally, they called for the decommodification of food and of women.

1. Bullard, Nicola et al. Taming the Tigers : The IMF and the Asian Crisis. Focus on the global south and CAFOD, Bangkok and London, March 1998
2. Baker, R W. Indonesia in Crisis Asia Pacific Issues, No 36 East West Center, May 1998
3. Hildyard, Nicholas, The World Bank and the State : A Recipe for Change? Bretton Woods Project, London 1997
4. Watkins, K. "Free Trade & Farm Fallacies". The Ecologist, Vol 26 No 6, Nov/Dec 1996, UK.

In 1997, the Philippines imported 800,000 tonnes of rice and, in 1998, there are already plans for the import of 1.1 million tonnes of rice, which are over 14 per cent of the total national rice consumption. There are also plans to import 350,000 tonnes of corn, which are over 20 per cent of the national consumption. The Philippines has received a huge financial grant from the U.S. to buy agricultural products from the U.S., and also received commodity loans of U.S. soyabeans.

Under the earlier structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and the new trade regime, peasants have lost their land, unemployment is increasing and more and more consumers are left with no purchasing power to buy food. (It is often argued that globalization would globalize development and reduce the inequality in the standard of living between the advanced capitalist countries and the neo-colonies, but the actual record shows an intensification of poverty on a global scale. About 70 per cent of the Asians are poor and their number is increasing every day.

In order to achieve food security, the Philippines has to address the problem of landlessness. Landlessness is the key question in the Philippines. Among every 10 land tillers, seven do not own land and pay exorbitant land rents.

Landlessness is in fact, the root cause for the poverty in Asia. About 80 per cent of the poor in Asia are landless peasants and indigenous peoples, the result of centuries of colonial land-grabbing. Their landlessness has deepened and expanded in direct proportion to the land accumulation of TNCs and landlord -‘compradors’. The dislocation from their land of the peasants and indigenous peoples are more often than not attended by forcible eviction, massacres of resisting farmers in the hands of military and paramilitary groups, and harassment. As vast tracts of landholdings passed into the control of TNCs and their landlord -‘comprador’ partners, corporate farms for high-value export crops have dominated the agricultural sector and undermined small producers who have been largely relegated into contract-growing arrangement. Land available for small-scale farming has shrunk, creating land scarcity among the farming population.

In the cities, land monopoly has made "squatters" out of the urban poor who are periodically chased out of their communities and livelihood location by demolitions. It also enabled urban based landlords to engage in speculative manipulation of land prices that are beyond the reach even of the middle class and frequently stalls government housing projects.

Unemployment is the twin of landlessness. In Asia, land monopoly is largely a historical act of divorcing peasants and indigenous peoples from their farms and at the same time, stunting the generation of economic opportunities in the rural areas. Further land accumulation upon the impetus of monopoly capitalist globalization has aggravated this condition. And accumulation in the era of globalization and liberalization – with its attendant phenomena of speculative land trading, crop conversion and rampant conversion of farms into golf courses, hotels, integrated shopping malls, elite-oriented subdivisions and semi-manufacturing assembly plants – causes large scale destruction of jobs and employment opportunities in the agriculture sector (George: 1996). As cheap food imports flooded local markets and as Asian governments cut off agricultural subsidies in adherence to WTO, bankruptcy among Asian peasants runs rampant. Agricultural production has been frozen which, in turn, exerts pressure on employment. These processes have released hordes of dispossessed peasants, indigenous peoples and fisherfolk into the labour market. Unabsorbed in the development projects replacing their farms, dispossessed peasants either swell the army of the unemployed or migrate to the cities.

The liberalization of fiscal, investment and market policies among Asian economies also cause the destruction of jobs and employment opportunities in the industrial sector. Currency devaluation and high interest rates have driven the cost of import-dependent production to prohibitive heights, forcing many small and medium scale enterprises to fold up. Even TNCs are sealing down operations. Both factors have spawned recession, as can be seen by massive layoffs everywhere in Asia, pushing unemployment to double-digit levels. Since the Uruguay Round in 1994, Asia has already lost an estimated total of 6 million jobs in both agriculture and industry. Recession or the disintegration of employment is hitting hardest those national economies whose SAPs are placed under direct supervision of the IMF-WB such as Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and the Philippines (George: 1997; Chossudovsky: 1997). Land monopoly and liberalisation have created what is perhaps the largest army of reserve labour.

The landlessness of the Asian majority has effectively deprived them of the power to decide to raise food crops for themselves. As Asian governments race to implement SAPs for building up foreign investments-led production for export, food production has been marginalized. The dominant agricultural development strategy is primarily tuned to cash crops diversification and expansion without implementing land distribution. In Malaysia, this has caused a drastic shift to rubber and palm oil plantations. Rice production has consistently fallen in Indonesia since 1995 as 50,000 hectares of land each year is converted to non-agricultural uses. In Vietnam and Cambodia, more and more lands are turned into palm oil and cashew production based on market demands and government policy. In the Philippines, China and Thailand, official policy reduces rice and corn areas to give way to commercial crops and livestock raising (Resurgence No 67).

Meanwhile, the drive to attract foreign investments has pushed the frenetic construction of roads, malls, resorts and other tourist recreation complexes, which have destroyed agricultural lands. In the Philippines, this conversion spree has already resulted in the loss of 178,439 hectares of agricultural land. The conversion of more land for golf courses and other tourist recreation projects and the speculation that goes with it has fast become a separate industry in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, with dollar-earning capacity. The membership for stocks and fees, of these projects are dominated by foreign clientele – raising them to the category of exports. Called the ‘property industry’, it has to a large extent contributed to the influx of speculative capital that ignited the "financial crisis" that now bedevils the entire region.

And caught in the orbit of this export-oriented production are Asian peasants who have been consigned to producing crops not for their own consumption but for the consumption of other people, mostly of advanced capitalist countries. Staple food yields are dipping in most parts of Asia while consumption demands are rising due to population pressure. Many Asian countries, which used to produce their staple food, have now resorted to importing their food needs, accounting for 65 per cent of Asia’s agricultural imports. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines combined for a rice import of 55.5 million tons of grain a year (Resurgence No 67). The picture is not likely to change in the near future as the IMF-WB and the TNCs are girding for the worldwide promotion of biotechnology crops under the second Green Revolution II (Resurgence No 97).

We must therefore remove agricultural trade and food from the preview of the WTO and other trade agreements. As long as we do not do this there is no food security. And this is the challenge for the poor.

Added to this now are the interests of the foreign financial agencies. As far back as in 1991, their mouthpiece, the World Bank, sent a set of proposals to the government of India to bring "reforms" in the agricultural area. It suggested: "(1) the removal of trade restrictions on agricultural commodities, (2) a drastic curtailment of food subsidy, (3) the removal of all restrictions on the choice of what to produce and where to sell, (4) freedom of operation of agri-business corporations, and (5) abolition of land ceiling laws". These proposals are being gradually introduced into the Indian agricultural economy through the New Economic Policy (NEP). How has this policy affected the conditions of millions of common people?

Following the NEP, the current trend in agriculture is to make it export-oriented, and the stress is on producing crops which have the highest demand in the export market. As a result, food production has been hampered and cash crop production encouraged. Land use for production of rapeseed, soybean and sunflower has increased by 63 per cent, 173 per cent and 163 per cent respectively, and for oilseeds and sugarcane by 34 per cent and 19 per cent respectively, in the period from 1991–1992 to 1995–1996. This development has taken place mainly in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat and Rajasthan. A large part of forest land and paddy fields in Kerala has been converted into rubber, coffee and coconut plantations. In West Bengal, large areas of paddy fields are converted into prawn and crab hatcheries, tea plantations, and into tomato and floriculture. And this process of transformation, gaining strength day by day has reduced the total quantity of food grain production in our country. Whereas the total food grain production in 1990 – 1991 was 32 million tons, it was reduced to 30 million tons in 1995 – 1996. It has become obvious that the export of agricultural commodities has brought down the production of foodgrains, portending a danger in the life of the poor and their food security.

And this problem has been compounded by the withdrawal of subsidies on food grains. The Central and the State governments are withdrawing subsidies on foodgrains, obediently following the dictates of the national and foreign capitalists and are, on the other hand, offering plentiful benefits to the kulaks in the rural areas.

The declaration of support price to wheat (the price at which the government buys wheat from the farmers) by the Government of India is meant in reality to satisfy and assure the kulak lobby of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. After the declaration of the NEP and acceptance of the new GATT and WTO, the support price of wheat increased by leaps and bounds from Rs225/- per quintal in five years, i.e. 111 per cent. As a result of the withdrawal of subsidies on foodgrains, the higher support price and such other measures, the number of people below the poverty line is increasing at an appalling rate. Only within two years of the NEP declaration, and acceptance of the new GATT and WTO, the number of people below the poverty line jumped to more than 63 million.

Again, with a view to further maximising profit, giant joint ventures with national and foreign capital are coming up in the agricultural field. From August 1991 to December 1996, 469 joint ventures have emerged in the food processing industry. (See table)

It shows what a massive amount of foreign capital is being invested in agro-based industries in India. And the investment, of both national and foreign capital in this field is increasing day by day. To facilitate large-scale corporate agriculture, and particularly the food-processing industry, attempts are being made to develop large farm holdings and abolish small ones; small farm holdings are considered a "handicap". So, demands are raised to modify, or totally abolish, the Land Ceiling Act. Four years ago, the World Bank reported that "the Land Act will have to be amended to encourage large land holding by the corporate sector" – (Business India, December 1993). The demand has also been raised, almost in the same tune, by ASSOCHAM, a leading organisation of corporate India. And the government is promptly conceding.

While this is helping national and foreign corporate interests to accumulate huge profits in the agricultural sector, it is not only making paupers of people in ever increasing numbers by robbing them of their means of subsistence, but also swelling the ranks of the landless labourers. According to the 1991 census, the number of agricultural labourers was 74.60 million and it is now more than 95 million. During the 10 year period from 1981–1991, the rate of increase of agricultural labourers was 1.4 per cent per annum. However, during the last six years this rate jumped to 1.55 per cent. It is thus clear that by integrating agriculture with the international market, the marginal markers are losing their land and becoming landless agricultural labourers at an accelerated pace.

What is the condition of these agricultural labourers? Are they getting increased wages in conformity with the rise in price index? The reality is otherwise. The report from the National Commission of Labour 1995 states, "During the period between 1988 and 1994, Consumer Price Index for agricultural labourers increased by 434 point whereas the wage rate increased only by Rs8 to Rs12 i.e. 50 per cent". It means that the real wage has decreased, increasing poverty and hunger. The more rapid the commercialisation and globalization of agriculture in the country, the more people will join the rank of the workers while creating affluence for a few.

In rural India, movements of peasants and agricultural labourers are demanding legitimate wages, year round employment guarantees, supply of food and agricultural inputs at subsidised rates, remedial measures against price rise and ejection from land, etc. And this is being integrated with the anti-imperialist movement. On the basis of this comprehensive outlook, the Indian farmers and agricultural workers’ struggle is developing and gradually gaining strength though it is yet to achieve strength.

However, with the rapid and complicated social changes Korea has been undergoing, a rapid change has also occurred in the composition of staple diets of the Korean people: increasing the consumption of meats, processed foods, and convenience foods often referred to as instant foods. On the contrary, consumption of grains has fallen, while that of wheat has increased – ranking as the second most consumed grain in Korea surpassed only by rice. Per capita consumption for particular crops as of 1996 are as follows: rice – 104.9kg, wheat – 31kg, barley – 1.5kg.

The problem is that Korea imports the whole quantity of the wheat its requires from other countries. In the case of neighbouring Japan, the Japanese government maintains, as a policy device, a price difference between the ‘import price’ and the local ‘market price’. This difference provides a subsidy to Japanese wheat growers and thus helps to promote the sustained cultivation of Japanese wheat – maintaining the consumption share of Japanese wheat at the level of 10 – 12 per cent.

In contrast, pressure from the U.S. government brought the Korean government to its knees, and the Korean government launched the "Eat Flour Campaign", and liberalised the import of wheat in 1982 followed by the discontinuation of wheat purchase by the government in 1984. Thus, the self-supply ratio of wheat continued to dwindle to 5.7 per cent in 1975; 0.1 per cent in 1988; and 0.012 per cent in 1991, when the Korean Wheat Revival Movement (KWRM) was initiated.

A matter of more urgent concern is the safety of imported wheat. The use of agricultural chemicals in imported wheat has become an established practice to assure the marketability of the wheat even after long-term shipment, loading, unloading and storage. In the case of the U.S., there are more than 20 different kinds of insecticides, sterilizers, antiseptics, and preservatives that are officially permitted for use.

Concerning the impact of imported wheat on the safety and health of people: 5 longshoremen at the port of Inchon passed out in 1989 due to aflatoxin poisoning, leaving one of them dead. In another incident, in Pusan in January 1993, more than 132 times the permitted limit of carbendasim was detected in 10,000 tons of the imported wheat.

However, young people in their twenties, and teenagers are infatuated with the bread, hamburgers, pizza and Chinese noodles made of these imported wheat soaked in agricultural chemicals. They eat these food stuff almost daily, leading to many types of cancers and even geriatric diseases at earlier ages. Against the backdrop of this urgency came the Korean Wheat Revival Movement (KWRM).

Fortunately, Korean wheat has the shortest growing period in the world and is remarkably resistant to the cold weather of the winter season. This wheat can be cultivated in areas with a mean January temperatures of – 14 degrees centigrade. It can also be grown in relatively infertile land. Occurrence of blight or damage by insects is comparatively non- existent, and cultivation of wheat is much less labour intensive than other crops. It is easy to grow in many areas and has a higher potential of production increase than barley or hop. Therefore, Korean wheat can be cultivated without, or with very little agricultural chemicals, or by organic farming using dry fields in the central areas of Korea. As well as one-time use of agricultural chemicals for the Korean wheat grown in rice paddies in the southern areas. As a result, no agricultural chemical component, among the 24 kinds for which tests were conducted by the Korean authorities, in 1993 – 1994, was found in the wheat. These results strongly testify to the safety of Korean wheat.

The KWRM started in 1991 with 2,000 promoters, who contributed an operational capital of 10,000 wons each. Thanks to the encouragement and support from many people, the movement now has 160,000 members and 6,000 farmer participants.

The members are virtually from all walks of life: from elementary school students, housewives, office workers to academics, political and religious leaders of diverse denominations, and artists, covering men and women of all ages.

Many civic groups, including credit unions and consumer co-operatives have also joined forces with the movement. Wheat growing areas have increased from 83ha at the start of the movement in 1991 to 3,600ha in 1996. Average harvest has also increased from 303kg per 10 areas in 1991 to 444kg in 1995, and the highest individual harvest topped 870kg.

The movement’s headquarters normally purchases the total amount of wheat cultivated on contract, guaranteeing the production cost. And then it puts diversified products on the market, including primary products of wheat from whole wheat, flour and secondary products such as noodles, bread, cookies, pizza, hot pepper paste, and tea to be sold through 8,000 exclusive sales agencies and sales agents supervised by 8 regional headquarters of the movement. Consequently, the movement has combined its campaign and business in one, so that the movement can sustain the soundness of business, while the business helps bolster the foundation of the movement. In a nutshell, the Movement has set a new precedent by creating a new model of a movement where movement and business interact with each other with a synergistic effect.

Especially interesting is the fact that wheat producers have taken charge of storage and processing of wheat, operating the flour mills and confectionaries firsthand, thus passing the added value onto the wheat growers themselves. Gradually, we have allowed regional headquarters to take on more powers, making them the central forces behind the movement while the Central Headquarters have focused on deciding major policy directions, study and research, plus education and advertisement activities, modelled on the system of grassroots democracy. We have also been active in joining forces with other civic groups to bring forth the best possible results for environmental protection and community revival.

In June of 1998, amid the worst environment we have ever faced, the Korean government accepted our petition filed by many supporters of the Movement, including cardinal Kim Soo-hwan, who has provided his full-fledged support for the Movement and even played a model in our advertisement. Thus the government allowed the Korean Agricultural Co-operative Association to take over the business section of our Movement including debts and agreed to resume to purchase of Korean wheat so that the existing Korean wheat growers can continue their cultivation of Korean wheat. The Movement’s headquarters will faithfully continue to work as a liaison between wheat growers and the Association through close consultations so that Korean wheat growing area can at least be maintained at current level or hopefully expanded further. As the awareness and support from consumers is a prerequisite to the continued success of our Movement, we will continue to look for various ways of increasing purchase and consumption of Korean wheat. At this juncture, we take pride in the achievement we have made so far in this uphill battle but we also renew our determination to double or triple our efforts to achieve more down the road.

We, 636 participants representing 316 organizations from 30 countries, have gathered here in Kuala Lumpur for the Asia Pacific Peoples’ Assembly from the 7th to the 15th of November 1998 on the occasion of the 6th APEC Leaders Meeting. We have come to confront the issue of globalization, and in particular the APEC as an instrument to implement it, in order to strengthen our understanding and resistance, and reassert peoples rights.

Neo-liberal globalization is the response of monopoly capital to the global crisis. Liberalization and deregulation of markets and investments, and privatization of public utilities and services have been imposed to expand TNC business and increase super-profits. Globalization is being promoted through the myth of unlimited growth by giving free rein to business and the "free" market.

The IMF-WB, and the WTO act as the main instruments of the superpowers to impose neoliberal policies. The APEC, like other regional and plurilateral formations such as the OECD, has been organized to hasten the process of globalization by strengthening business - government partnership in enforcing specific action programs and policies that enhance liberalization through trade and investments facilitation, enforcing policy commitments to liberalization and "economic cooperation". Further the TNCs themselves are the most important driving force of globalization in their unquenchable thirst for super profits.

But the Mexican crisis, then the Asian crisis and now the global crisis have shown us the resultant collapse and ugly side of speculative finance and as a result have debunked the myths of globalization. The major points in the agenda of APEC now are how to rationalize the failure of globalization in the Asia Pacific and pursue even greater liberalization as a response to the crisis.

The state has been redesigned and its role manipulated in order to meet the demands of monopoly capital and the local ruling elites of big landowners and big business and divesting the state of its social responsibility. The economic crisis has destabilized the hegemony of monopoly capital and particularly, the power sharing of U.S., Japan and the European Union in the region. It has also brought about political crisis and intensified popular resistance from all sectors of the people of Asia and the Pacific. As a result there is increased defense spending and militarization in the Asia-Pacific countries. There are also efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Japan military alliance through the New Guidelines for Defense Cooperation between the U.S. and Japan, maintenance of U.S. bases in Okinawa, Japan and South Korea, and the return of U.S. military presence in the Philippines.

However, far from its promise of jobs and progress, globalization has resulted in widespread unemployment, displacement of peoples and destruction of their livelihoods, marginalization of large sections of society, intensified discrimination and repression as well as the disintegration of families and communities. Far from its promise of development, globalization has wrecked societies, destroyed economies and financial systems. It has destroyed production systems, resources and the environment, destroyed the means of subsistence of small entrepreneurs and producers, brought them to ruin and has led to famine conditions in many countries in Asia and the Pacific. It has brought peoples and countries to greater poverty and misery.

Globalization thrives on the promotion of an ideology of consumerism, individualism and patriarchy among the people enshrined in globalist monoculture. It has also brought about the emergence of dangerous forces promoting narrow, chauvinist-nationalist anti-globalization platforms that have intensified social conflicts and politics of fundamentalism, neo-fascism and xenophobia.

The appropriation of land through landgrabbing by mining, logging and agro-industrial TNCs; by tourist and real estate development projects and by shifting from sustainable food production to export monocrops; as well as displacement by hydro-electric and other mega-maldevelopment projects have increased landlessness of the peasants and indigenous peoples.

The fisherfolk are deprived of their livelihood, and access to aquatic resources because of commercial and corporatized aquaculture, large-scale commercial fishing, landgrabbing, and conversion of fishery areas to non-productive purposes, as well as the degradation of the aquatic environment due to industrial pollution and chemical use.

Corporatized agriculture dependent on high-yielding monocultures and industrial chemical inputs has destroyed food security, endangers human health and destroys the environment irreversibly. Food security is further threatened by the destruction of local food production, the widespread landlessness and displacement of peasants, the loss of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge, the new and fast expansion of genetic engineering and the dumping of agricultural supply from Northern countries.

Globalization has resulted in massive rural displacement and, along with concentrated maldevelopment in the cities, has resulted in intense urban migration. In the burgeoning cities, the urban poor face joblessness, and homelessness as well as forced evictions due to megamall development projects and urban land speculation.

With greater mobility of capital, workers’ rights, wages and working conditions have been extremely eroded. The crisis has led to mass layoffs and unemployment. Greater exploitation of labour is realized through neoliberal methods of union busting, and the promotion of contract work, casual work, home-based work, and labor flexibility. Increased joblessness has intensified labor migration. The thirst for more profits through lower labor costs has resulted in the increase of trafficked labor, women and child labor.

Women suffer most from globalization. It has intensified discrimination and degradation of women. They are pushed to migration in greater numbers and they are forced to enter into extremely exploitative working conditions and trafficked into the sex trade. Privatization of health care violates women’s rights to total well-being by denying them access to safe, appropriate, affordable and quality preventive and curative health care. More and more, they are facing extreme forms of discrimination, violence and rape, which are increasingly being used as tools for subjugation by men and the state.

The future of the youth and students is threatened by globalization. Access to people-centered quality education has been limited by commercialization, which has raised the costs and narrowed the curriculum to serve the interests of capital. Students organizing dissent, as well as their efforts to find solidarity with the people’s movements, are systematically and violently suppressed.

Indigenous peoples are denied of their right to self-determination. They are violently displaced and deprived of their land to give way to maldevelopment projects, and TNC mining, oil and gas exploration and logging business. To accelerate this process, their territories are militarized. Tourism projects commercialize and denigrate their culture. Community rights over their biological and genetic resources as well as their indigenous knowledge are trampled upon.

Trade liberalization is destroying our natural resources. Governments in crisis are selling off non-renewable and scarce resources including forests and water as a way out of the crisis. Globalization has accelerated environmental abuse the world over, intensifying the destruction of various ecosystems and, with it, the people’s livelihood.

The full realization of the people’s human rights should be the primary objective of economic arrangements. However, economic, political, civil, social and cultural rights are violated by the state and monopoly capital with impunity. As the people resist and assert their rights, they are met with violent suppression by the state. Under the guise of political stability, repressive laws together with the control of the judiciary, tighten the grip of the state and promote dictatorship.

We vehemently resist globalization as we struggle for equality, peoples’ democratic rights and sovereignty, self-determination, social justice, people-centered development and welfare.

Fight to reverse neo-liberal globalization and put an end to its policies of liberalization and deregulation of trade and investment and privatization of public assets and services.

Expose, resist and reject APEC. Other multilateral instruments of globalization like the IMF, World Bank, the GATT, WTO and recently the MAI as well as other multi-lateral instruments such as regional associations that, in various ways, contribute to globalization must also be thoroughly exposed in order that they be dismantled along with the APEC.

The TNCs must also be dismantled and the state must be challenged and their efforts to promote neo-liberal globalization must be resisted and overcome.

What we need is genuine cooperation among peoples and countries of the Asia Pacific, and uphold the peoples’ sovereignty and right to self-determination.

1. We reaffirm the universality and indivisibility of our rights as enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and in various UN and ILO conventions. But these are not being enforced; they are being breached with impunity and states are not being made accountable. We assert our rights, forward the struggle and strengthen the people’s movements.

2. We must develop broad information campaigns and intensive education to promote people-centered actions, organize at all levels of oppressed communities and sectors and continue the resistance through creative political actions at the local and national level, as well as pursue community level alternatives.

3. We seek different levels of alliances with different groups and build international solidarity to resist globalization and realize the people’s alternatives.

We can not expect any government or TNC or international organization to do this for us, we have only ourselves, our strength, our unity and determination!