Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

We’re hiring! AFSA is seeking a paralegal to support the work of the Legal Defence Fund

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AFSA is seeking a paralegal to join its Legal Defence Fund (LDF). The paralegal will primarily support the work of the LDF Steering Committee which supports and advocates for small-scale farmers, artisanal producers, and the broader community through legal policy, reform and advocacy work. The LDF works closely with the AFSA Executive Committee and with AFSA members, through grassroots activities, communities of practice networks, and interest groups.

This role provides an opportunity to contribute to the food sovereignty movement and the broader community. The role involves high profile and challenging work, engagement with key stakeholders in the justice system, government and community, and the opportunity to advocate food sovereignty for all.

You can find out more about the Legal Defence Fund here, and see here for further details and a full position description.

The UN, Biodiversity, & Climate Change: reflections on the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture

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Tammi Jonas, AFSA President

March 1, 2019

Tammi, along with our allies in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, represented civil society at the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture in Rome in February.

 

I am in mourning.

A younger, more optimistic me died last week. Not even 50, she was far too young.

As I sat with the governments of the world at UN meetings in Rome, I couldn’t get Midnight Oil’s iconic 1987 song Beds are Burning out of my head, the line ‘how can we sleep while our beds are burning’ playing over and over, drowning out the monotone of the oft-repeated refrain that ‘Canada would like it noted that the guidelines are voluntary’ and ‘specific actions are a matter for national governments’.

I want to apologise to my children for the way the generations before them have trashed the planet they need to live on – we are leaving them an inheritance of climate chaos and almost certain social collapse globally. And we’ve known we were spending the resources they’ve loaned us for decades, but our governments have continually bowed at the altar of industry, accepting tithes to retain their seculo-papal power.

I want to fall to my knees, weep, wail, tear my hair out, and retreat to a nunnery. I want to drought proof our farm and close the gate. I want to open the gate and let them all come. I want to stand on every stage and in every screen and shout ‘WAKE UP! IT’S TOO LATE! WAKE UP! IT CAN’T BE TOO LATE!’ I want to believe it’s not too late, I know it’s too little, too late.

Over a week of mind-numbing bureaucratic tedium in a theatre in the house of the dead – the mausoleum that is the buildings of the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) – we heard over and over that the FAO and its committees know very well and in fine detail what has caused and is causing climate change and loss of biodiversity.

We heard the world’s most powerful highly developed nations shrug off responsibility and distract the audience with insistence on a word change here, a denial of FAO’s role there, oh, and ‘we don’t support monitoring’ of their activities by the FAO. The US nasally reminds us (as if we could forget) that ‘we agree with Canada.’ Argentina and Brazil form their own bloc – two of the south’s biggest industrial ag countries – sometimes agreeing with their North American counterparts, sometimes not. It’s hard to get their measure – these major global exporters of soy, wheat, maize, sugarcane, and beef have some of the language of farmers’ rights and biodiversity loss, but are also averse to scrutiny and vocal supporters of further developments in biotechnology for agriculture.

The meeting was the Seventeenth Regular Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Members of the secretariat noted that in the past two years they have ‘firmly planted biodiversity in the global agenda’, and that ‘the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) heralded a reinvigorated relationship with FAO, marking the beginning of a new era of synergies between agriculture and the environment.’ This hopeful note was for many of us the first stroke in a week of a thousand deaths, as senior bureaucrats repeatedly ‘heralded’ the realisation of things we learned in primary school.

We heard of their revolutionary work to ‘mainstream biodiversity’ – that awkward, outcast kid who has trouble getting along with all the homogenous blonde little Johnnies in her class, with her chemical-free, whole foods diet, and the rich microbiome helping her digest her morning glass of raw milk. That’s right – we’re so far down the industrial path that we now need the UN to teach us how to ‘mainstream’ biodiversity back into agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.

Some of my notes from the meeting read more like the lines from Idiocracy, where characters from the past have to teach our future selves not to put a Gatorade-like product on plants. It’s worth quoting the movie at length here to give you a better sense of where I just was.

Joe: For the last time, I’m pretty sure what’s killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes.

Attorney General: So wait a minute. What you’re saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out of the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn’t have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that’s the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It’s got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren’t growing, so I’m pretty sure that the Brawndo’s not working. Now, I’m no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I’ve never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that’s good. You sure you ain’t the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You wanna solve this problem. I wanna get my pardon. So why don’t we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo’s got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it’s got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It’s what they use to make Brawndo.

Joe: Yeah, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?

Secretary of Defense: ‘Cause Brawndo’s got electrolytes.

I feel for the FAO staff at these meetings. Their website admonishes us to ‘eat local’ and ‘diversify your diet’, noting as per the Report on The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food & Agriculture’s findings released at the meetings, we are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate.

Just nine crops account for 66% of total crop production. Nine. Crops.

26% of livestock breeds are threatened with extinction. Bees and other pollinators are dying. The FAO are clear on the facts that lay before us, and they’re clear that the worst contributor to this dismal outlook is industrial agriculture. The report tells us that changes in land and water use and management are the biggest offenders, with de-forestation to clear the way for industrial monocultures – much of which is fed to animals in intensive livestock systems – leading our demise.

While the FAO knows WTF is wrong, governments look side-eyed at each other and angle for a bigger piece of the world’s shrinking genetic pie. They have made huge advances in recent decades on digital sequencing information (DSI, aka genetic sequencing data or ‘de-materialised genetic resources’). We heard from an FAO senior staffer that where the human genome originally cost USD $100 million to sequence, it can now be done for just $600. What are the real implications for this?

Although DSI is a de-materialised form of genetic data, it can be used to reproduce its source synthetically in the lab. Practically speaking, this means that anything that has been sequenced is available to corporations to reproduce, ‘improve’, and you guessed it, patent. They can take peasant seeds, re-fashion them as they like to be pesticide resistant or to increase yield, patent them and pocket the profits. Meanwhile, the original custodians of these seeds – the Indigenous Peoples, peasants, and small-scale farmers of the world, get nothing for their centuries and millennia of toil that made these seeds available in the first place.

Realising the inequity of this situation, the UN put in place measures to try to ensure access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing (ABS) of developments of these resources by the world’s colonisers of seed. You can see how well that is going in my account of last year’s meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Plant Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture on farmers’ rights. Spoiler: not so well.

Here we have two key issues battling for our attention – DSI and ABS – and they are deeply intertwined as physical seeds become irrelevant when multinational corporations like Monsanto-Bayer and Syngenta sequence them, and countries like the USA and Canada sit in Rome and assert that they ‘do not support monitoring or evaluation of countries’ implementation of ABS’, and insist that ‘DSI is separate from ABS’. Still with me?

In case there’s a risk that I’ve misinterpreted the motives of the north Americans, let me highlight a significant revision they demanded in the Commission’s Multi-Year Program of Work, changing the wording on the Commission’s plan for ‘biotechnologies’ in 2021 and 2025 from ‘Review of the development of biotechnologies and their potential impact on the conservation and sustainable utilisation of GRFA (genetic resources for food & ag) to ‘Review of the work on biotechnologies for the conservation and sustainable use of GRFA’. That’s right – they don’t want the Commission to review the impact of biotech on genetic resources – they’ve erased that potential and codified the notion that biotech is ‘for conservation and sustainable use’.

Next on the agenda, the Commission ‘requested FAO to prepare a scoping study on the role of GRFA in adaptation and mitigation of climate change, taking into account the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special reports on terrestrial and marine systems…’ A scoping study. And if they determine that the role of genetic resources for food and agriculture are ‘pertinent’, then the working groups should provide guidance to the Commission on preparation of a ‘global country-driven assessment for review […] and consideration by the Commission in this next Session’ (in 2021).

We don’t need to scope a study on the importance of biodiversity – we don’t even need another study to tell us what we already understand quite well. The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture report spells it out and underscores the urgency of the problems of rapid biodiversity loss. Sure, keep studying the particularities of the problems, but meanwhile, STOP CUTTING DOWN FORESTS IMMEDIATELY.

IPC made an intervention on the agenda item on biodiversity and climate change, virtually begging the governments to act more swiftly to slow the terrible impacts of climate change already felt in Australia and across the globe. While we were congratulated by a number of non-state actors and a handful of state representatives from the global south, I fear that too many vested interests cotton the ears of most in the global north.

There were lengthy deliberations on the role of aquatic, animal, and forestry genetic resources for food and agriculture, punctuated with the same heel digging from North and South America’s wealthiest nations, hand wringing from Africa’s poorest, and calls for more and stronger action from countries like Ecuador and Iran. Aside from Japan’s regular alignment with the North Americans, Asia was remarkably reserved on most topics.

Perhaps this line from our intervention on animal genetic resources most succinctly highlights the interrelationships between all plants, animals, and soil that have been segmented by much of the work in governmental fora:

‘De-forestation is largely driven by industrial livestock agriculture as trees are felled to make room for monocultures of soy, corn, and other grains to be fed to animals in intensive production models. Both intensive industrial livestock production and monocultures of grain are significant contributors to loss of biodiversity and polluters of waterways, thereby also contributing to the loss of biodiversity in terrestrial and marine waters.’

Sadly, while these realities of the impact of industrial agriculture are well known, reported on, and provided the sub-text for the entire week of the Commission’s meetings, there was a unified reluctance to speak on the specificities of the problems, which might have required the Commission to debate the specificities of the solutions.

In the agenda item on micro-organisms and pollinators, peasant farmer and long-term activist Guy Kastler of Confédération Paysanne in France made this excellent intervention. While the bees die and human health suffers from the orthodoxy of sterility that is killing our own microbiomes, governments seemed most interested in working on the micro-organisms in the rumen of cattle to aid their digestion of grain in intensive livestock systems.

Aligned with work already undertaken by the FAO, the IPC recommended very specific urgent action by all governments of the world to address practices that are undermining the sustainability of food and agricultural production, including but not limited to:

  • pesticide use;
  • synthetic fertiliser use;
  • repeated tilling of soils;
  • intensive livestock production;
  • over-grazing;
  • de-forestation; and
  • over-fishing & intensive aquaculture.

We also urged member states to join the FAO in its efforts to promote the use of production models and management practices that promote and preserve biodiversity, such as agroecology, including approaches that integrate biodiverse forestry practices such as agrosilviculture, agrisilvipasture, and silvopastoral systems; and artisanal and small-scale fisheries.

Finally, we supported the Commission’s plan to facilitate the participation of relevant stakeholders in decision-making, and asked that where they have not done so already, the Commission and its member states put in place frameworks that effectively respect, preserve, and maintain knowledges, innovations, practices, and rights of indigenous peoples, small-scale farmers, fishers, and fish workers, and local communities, in particular assuring farmers’ rights as per the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture.

Our final words to the Commission were:

We understand that governments are reliant on, responsive to, and at times answerable to the various industries of your nations. But no industry – including commodity agriculture – should ever have unfettered power to act against the public good. We come here as representatives of the peoples of the world, and ask that you consider your people’s interests above all. The time for decisive action to end destructive industrial agricultural practices was fifty years ago. The time for action is now.

Now it’s time to pick myself up and continue to be active in my own optimism – to be an active optimist. Our children’s future depends on us.

Biodiversity and climate change – we need action now!

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18 February 2018

AFSA President Tammi Jonas is with our allies in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty representing civil society at the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture.

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The people are speaking!

Huge first day at the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture here in Rome, with many interventions from those of us here representing civil society as part of the IPC for Food Sovereignty. I'll report more fully when I get home (and am not in the midst of 10-hour-meeting days), but below is one of my interventions today on the role of genetic resources for the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change:

 

Back home in Australia, climate change is manifest and devastating. Over the past year we have suffered unprecedented drought across the eastern states, with serious loss of livestock and wildlife as pasture turned to dirt, and then the topsoils blew away. The drought was followed by extraordinary flooding, which led to the deaths of as many as 500,000 cattle, and subsequently resulted in flood waters rushing into the sea and smothering the Great Barrier Reef, which has already suffered repeated bleaching events and is rapidly losing biodiversity as sea temperatures rise.

While the north flooded, fires burned in parts of Australia’s southernmost island of Tasmania, only to be covered by snow as they declined – in the middle of summer. It is estimated that 2% of the world’s pencil pines perished in the fires – a non-recoverable loss – some of the trees lost in the fires were over 1000 years old.

To personalize the impacts of climate change on small-scale farmers in Australia, let me share that amongst the members of the committee of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, in the past month alone, one of our farmers lost half his flock of heritage poultry in the northern floods, another has completely de-stocked and is carting water in for basic needs in southern Queensland, and the town of 600 people nearest my own farm was evacuated for two days under threat of a severe bushfire at its borders. Meanwhile dozens of our farmer members in Tasmania were repeatedly evacuated under threat of fire in regions that are not traditionally considered a fire risk.

I tell these stories because the sub-sectoral reports for these meetings and indeed the proposal for a scoping study on the role of GRFA in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change do not go far enough for the level of emergency we face. We must act now – every country has a responsibility to its people and the generations that will come after them to immediately transition away from logging and clear-felling of biodiverse forests for the purposes of planting monocultures – imagine standing passively while someone ripped the lungs out of your body – this is what we’re allowing with continued de-forestation across the globe.

While the Commission nor national governments can force the practitioners of industrial agriculture to sow more genetically diverse plants nor grow more diverse breeds of livestock, they can regulate the conditions under which these homogenous seeds and breeds are grown, and limit the use of harmful agri-chemicals such as the much-cited pesticides and antimicrobial pharmaceuticals for livestock. If countries ban these band-aids that are repeatedly applied to the cancer of industrial agriculture, the production models will have no choice but to shift to healthier, more resilient practices.

Every person in this room – like every child in a primary school science classroom – knows that biodiversity is critical for a resilient and sustainable food system, and that we need now more than ever resilience to deal with the impacts of climate change. It is up to the governments of the world to do what is necessary to build this resilience back into our food and agriculture systems, by supporting best those who have always and will continue to maintain and develop biodiversity – the indigenous peoples, peasants, and small-scale farmers and fishers of the world.

Viva la via campesina!

Farm Day Out: A music fest for lovers of good, fair food!

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The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is hosting the inaugural Farm Day
Out at Jonai Farms in Eganstown, Victoria on 17 March 2019.

It’s a day on the farm meets music festival, where one can meet local farmers, catch
a dance-inducing line-up of live music, and sink your teeth into some delicious local,
ethical & ecologically-sound food, while kicking back in the rolling hills outside
Daylesford.

Best of all, the event is a fundraiser in support of farmers and their allies working
towards sustainable and regenerative food systems. At a time when Australia is
suffering drought and our rivers are dying from the worst excesses of industrial
export-oriented agriculture up north, many are looking to new/old, better ways of
farming.

The morning kicks off with a tour of Jonai Farms, where local farming legends
Tammi and Stuart Jonas will guide visitors through their diverse, small-scale,
agroecological farming system, and the on-farm boning room and commercial
kitchen where they produce fresh cuts, smallgoods, charcuterie, and salumi.
Back at the beautiful Jonai event space – the grandly named ‘Belvedere’ – punters
will be treated to a lilting line-up of folk, country and indie acts throughout the
afternoon. Local stars Freya Josephine Hollick (fresh off the back of recording a new
album with Buick 6 at Rancho De La Luna studios in California), Sean McMahon,
and Sal Kimber and the Rollin’ Wheel, will be hitting the stage with full bands on
show for big, deep tunes.

You’ll be able to fill up on locally-produced eats and treats from some of Victoria’s
favourite food trucks, including hyperlocal Danny’s Farm and ever-popular Lil’ Nom
Noms, and enjoy the likes of Captain’s Creek organic cider and wine and Holgate
beer from just down the road. In keeping with AFSA’s mission of fair food, Farm Day
Out organisers are ensuring that all food is sourced ethically from farmers we know
and love. (You can also bring your own picnic lunch - no BYO alcohol).

Farm Day Out will also see the launch of AFSA’s revolutionary new book Farming
Democracy: Radically transforming the food system from the ground up. The book
shares the stories of eight small-scale regenerative farmers from across Australia,
from veg growers and pastured livestock farmers to organic grain farmers. It delves
into just how they grow, process, and sell their food, and what it takes for them to
farm the way they do - giving practical, on-the-ground insight into what is happening
around the country to build a fairer food system, and opening the books to share
what it costs (and makes) them to grow food fairly.

All funds raised by the event will support AFSA’s work in advocating for a fair,
nourishing, and ecologically-sound food system – supporting more farms, not bigger
farms, and working to drought proof Australia with agroecology!

About the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance
The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is working towards a fair, diverse
and democratic food system for the benefit of all Australians. We are a civic
organisation of Australian farmers, communities, organisations, and individuals
committed to upholding the rights of peoples to food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty asserts the right of peoples to nourishing and culturally appropriate
food produced and distributed in ecologically sound and ethical ways and their right
to collectively determine their own food and agriculture systems.

The degree to which peoples experience food sovereignty has a direct bearing on
their food security. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical,
social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their
dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The greater
peoples’ food sovereignty, the greater the level of control they have over their food
choices and the sources of their food.

When: Sunday 17 March, 10:00am – 6:30pm
Where: Jonai Farms, Eganstown VIC 3461
More info and tickets: https://www.facebook.com/events/381367049352162/

FOR INTERVIEW:
• Tammi Jonas, President M: 0422 429 362
INFORMATION:
• afsa.org.au
• admin@afsa.org.au

Defending food sovereignty by building a people’s alternative to capitalism and free trade  

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Regional Meeting for Asia of the Land and Territory Working Group of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty: AFSA Report

8-14 October 2018 

 Sarah de Wit

 

Source: La Via Campesina

 This report aims to:

  • Report back on the meetings, workshops and direct actions relating to progress of the food sovereignty movement.  
  • Report back on the IMF/WB agenda in Bali.  
  • Explain and reinforce understanding of AFSA’s membership with IPC and its Asia Pacific Regional Committee.  
  • Refer to the history of IPC and the Working Group on Land and Territories and AFSA’s involvement to date.  
  • Provide members of AFSA transparency regarding funding for the trip.  
  • To give AFSA supporters the knowledge to fully understand the context of these meetings in order to solidify AFSA’s organisational priorities and to encourage the food sovereignty movement in Australia to cohere and work together more effectively and with better opportunity for democratic participation. 

Background  

Stepping out of my usual role as Paralegal for AFSA, from 8th – 14th October this year I attended regional meetings for the Asian Land and Territory Working Group of the International Planning Committee (IPC) for Food Sovereignty in Bali, after being nominated by the AFSA Committee to represent our organisation and our members.  

AFSA has been an active member of the IPC for Food Sovereignty for five years. As part of the Regional Facilitating Committee for Asia Pacific since 2016, AFSA was invited to attend the regional meetings as well as workshops and political actions that followed.  

I had the opportunity to participate as a delegate for IPC Asia and to receive a funded spot within the IPC budget. This meant that AFSA did not cover my international travel costs and expenses. The IPC designates interested delegates by prioritising geographical, gender and constituency representation, such as youth, women or indigenous people. While I am not a farmer or rural dweller, as a young woman I was empowered to attend because of the composition criteria of the IPC Working Group.  

The Meeting for the Land and Territories Working Group 

Corresponding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group Annual Meetings [1] in Bali from 8th – 14th October 2018, the meetings were called by the IPC Working Group for Land and Territories[2] to bring together peasant organisations from across the region to defend food sovereignty and the rights of peasants.[3]  

This followed a call from La Via Campesina to mobilise for the International Day of Action against WTO and Free Trade Agreements on 10th September 2018. The meetings and workshops were also held before 16th October, the International Day of Action for Peoples’ Food Sovereignty and against Transnational corporations.  

On the way to our hotel, I saw countless flags branded with the IMF and World Bank meeting logo lining the streets. Each flag featured the word “welcome” in different languages, welcoming finance ministers and central bank governors from more than 180 countries to Bali. My taxi driver told me that there would be 30,000 individuals travelling to Bali for the IMF World Bank meetings. A new toll had been set up to finance upgrades to the roads between the airport and Nusa Dua, in preparation for the meetings. I was astounded to hear that the Indonesian government had spent more than $75 million to host the three-day IMF and World Bank meetings, especially after the tsunami and earthquake incidents in Sulawesi had happened a mere week before. I later learned from an ABC article that the Indonesian Opposition criticised the government for its hosting budget (which far exceeded that of previous host countries [4]) and called for money to be diverted to earthquake victims in the cities of Palu and Donggala.  

 

Toll point constructed in preparation for the IMF World Bank meetings.

At the IPC meetings, delegates and participants from Asia and Australia as well as Africa, Americas and Europe, unanimously held the World Bank and IMF responsible for facilitating large-scale land grabbing, deforestation and ocean grabbing, which has led to increasing inequality, poverty and global hunger. The meetings were facilitated by Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI), the Indonesian Peasant Union, a member of La Via Campesina and the IPC.   

We discussed what strategic support we would expect from the IPC, what fields of work proposed by the IPC Working Group would support our struggles and, according to the priorities discussed, what plans of action we could commit to.  After the presentation and approval of the agenda, we had a session on the IPC Land and Territory WG and its work plan, reviewing the 2017 WG meeting, presenting the WG and its working methods, and presenting the resolutions of the previous IPC general meeting. We also discussed the renewal of the coordination group and identified interested organisations in coordination. Discussions surrounded our response to peasant and advocate criminalisation, our communication strategy and the deepening of our vision of people’s governance according to the priorities that came out of our working groups.  

The consensus among delegates was that the World Bank and IMF have taken control of the global food chain and placed it into the hands of agribusiness and development speculators, while creating devastating impacts on food production, rural people, markets and the ecosystems affected.  

 


The South East Asian Working group breakout session. Source: LVC Twitter

 A Media Release by La Via Campesina (LVC), the international peasant’s movement, reported on the struggles of various countries according to their representatives, including Indonesia, Timor Leste, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, South Korea, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and also allies from Kenya, France, Nicaragua, Germany and Argentina. Many cited the major factors contributing to the forced displacement and development of peasant communities by the World Bank and IMF.  

For over three decades, the IMF and World Bank have “forced countries to decrease investment in food production and to reduce support for peasant and small farmers.” LVC also reported that, because of “neo-liberal policies, state managed food reserves have been considered too expensive and governments have been forced to reduce and privatise them under structural adjustment regimes.” 

Ms Jeongyeol Kim from the Korean Women Peasants’ Association pointed out the impact of free trade agreements and export-oriented agribusiness models on women farmers.  

“Peasant women face the worst of this industrial model, that is heavy on use of chemical inputs. This shift in the way we do agriculture came about largely due to conditions put forth by IMF and World Bank while giving loans.” 

Baramee Chairayat from Assembly of the Poor, Thailand said:  

“The National Development Plan in Thailand always had the blessing of World Bank and it meant that agricultural land and public forests were being diverted to make way for massive highways, large agribusiness plantations and sugar cane factories. Over a period of four decades much of rural Thailand has become landless. They have enacted laws that alienated indigenous peoples from their forest.” 

Zainal Arifin Fuad, national peasant leader from SPI, said:  

 “World Bank and IMF have, in the name of Structural Adjustment Programme, pushed for financialisation and privatisation of natural resources in Indonesia. When people resist these land grabs – taking place whether in the name of REDD+ or any other such programs – peasants are attacked, jailed and criminalised. We have the most recent case of Ahmad Azhari, who was kept in prison for nearly 9 months for defending the rights of peasants. All these institutions are here to help corporations expand their businesses rather than lifting people out of poverty.” 

AFSA shared solidarity with the movement by firstly stating Australia’s direct hand in contributing to free trade and export-oriented deals across the globe. As a country that voted against the recently adopted UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, Australia is seen by many rural communities of Asia as one third of the “evil three” in the context of globalisation. During a working group discussion at the meeting, I stated that AFSA is working to build local, state and national government support for small-scale farming. I shared our successes in making planning permit applications cheaper and easier for small-scale farmers through our lobbying efforts. I also described the work of our Legal Defence Fund (LDF) which has in its first year supported farmers with their planning permits, given advice about alternative milk supply chains, responded to spray drift concerns in the urban and rural context, and made nearly a dozen law reform submissions to state and national governments relating to food and agriculture regulations. I also talked about the significant loss of farmland to peri-urban growth, and due to roads and infrastructure development and the increasing expansion of large-scale, concentrated farming methods. 

I was asked to expand on the concerns of indigenous peoples within Australia for control over land, water and seeds. While I could not represent the voice of Aboriginal people, I touched on the impact of the intellectual property regime in relation to native foods and the expression of Aboriginal culture. AFSA has strategised over these issues, significantly since Bruce Pascoe spoke at our 2017 Convergence, which had a major impact on our work for food sovereignty in Australia.  

We hope the IPC Working Group on Land and Territories will continue to open regional spaces for policy discussion and strengthen relationships between social movements. The IPC’s contribution to formulating the Declaration for the Rights of Peasants will further validate the experiences of small-scale farming in Australia. In turn, small-scale farmers are to enjoy newly formed rights given to them by way of being captured under the definition of “peasant” in that Declaration[5]. I committed at that time, on behalf of AFSA, to promote the legitimacy of the Declaration by lobbying to our national government and its departments.  

After long hours of meetings and working groups, I spent evenings in the lobby of the hotel working with newfound friends and allies from India, Argentina, Germany and Nicaragua. We designated the lobby as “The Office” where we would share resources, work for our separate organisations, socialise and reflect on the meetings.  

 

“The Office”.

Workshops and Direct Actions 

The Working Group also hosted a series of events with allies in Bali to protest against the neoliberalist agendas of the World Bank and IMF which promote free market trade regimes responsible for destroying rural peasant communities, fishers’ livelihoods and peasant markets.  

Under the theme of “A World Beyond Banks”, the workshops enabled a broad assembly of peoples’ movements, indigenous peoples, peasants, fisherfolks, workers, migrants, women, youth, LGBTQI people and others adversely affected by the IMF and World Bank’s agenda to meet and strategise.  

The event was organised and facilitated by Gerak Lawan, the Indonesian peoples’ movement against neo-colonialism and imperialism. The workshops included joint public forums on extractivism, monetisation, commodification, and infrastructure. We were fortunate to have the location provided by TVRI, the national broadcasting television network of Indonesia.  

As we entered the TVRI auditorium, an open picture board was visible behind the registration table. The photos, showing the struggles of rural workers’ alliances, women peasants and many others against neoliberalism, were powerful to say the least.

  

Nged Khow from APWLD, Cambodia (Mrs Khow came to the workshops to talk about her campaign to save her farm. I was honoured to meet her and hold her hand as she shared her story with me through her interpreter).  

These photos were eventually taken down by Gerak Lawan members to reduce the risk of the event being shut down by local police.  

 Women played a strong role in many aspects of the workshops. This is unsurprising as most of the world’s food is grown by peasant women [6]. I was personally inspired to see Indonesia’s women’s solidarity group, Solidaritas Perempuan and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development contributing significantly to the discussions and strategising for development justice for women. Women voices led most of the workshops, forums and direct-action preparation.   

An entire working group session was dedicated to a gender discussion, “Food Sovereignty: Power Gender and Right to Food” on 12 October at the TVRI Auditorium. The speakers highlighted the failure of the IMF’s gender equality policies, where women empowerment is promoted by way of encouraging market-based solutions to market access. Instead of assisting women in the labour force to have control over their own land, the IMF maintains that women should set up their own bank accounts to access financial services in an increasingly precarious and deregulated market.  

Among the speakers was Ms Kim from KWPA, an active member of the IPC and LVC.  

    

 

I was impressed and motivated by the leadership shown by the feminist organisations present and their drive and motivation to carry out advocacy, activism and movement building. Their efforts significantly advance women’s human dignity and development justice in the region.  

At the auditorium, we were also joined by grassroots organisations such as the Asia Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, Focus on the Global South, Fight Inequality Alliance, ReCommon, Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation, FTA Watch, World Forum of Fisher People, Peoples Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA), Center for Financial Accountability, Bina Desa, Coalition for Human Rights in Development, IFI Watch Myanmar, OT Watch Mongolia, Oakland Institute, Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ), and many others.  

The program for the workshops was designed to match the discussions being had at the IMF World Bank meetings themselves, canvassing issues relating to social justice, feminism, civil societies, the future of work, transparency and impunity of international financial institutions, and others.  

Some effective protests were held around the Nusa Dua for reclamation of farmland and ocean territory. While arrests were made two days prior, quick legal assistance provided by Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and Solidaritus Perempuan meant that the protesters were released without charges.  

Disappointingly for many, the delegates of the regional meeting for IPC were not granted police approval for a public protest by this time and were unable to participate in direct action for safety reasons. Despite this, we supported the above grassroots organisations in stating truth to power in their objectives to the police when the TVRI was investigated on 14 October.  

  

 

 Action!  

Delegates and peasant organisations have pledged to expose the incriminating role of World Bank and IMF in increasing inequality, land dispossession and poverty.  

We agreed to continue to denounce the existence of World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organisation as well as expose the details of corporate agreements that threaten to take away people’s food sovereignty and allow expansion of markets for multinational agribusinesses. 

AFSA agreed to write a letter to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) about our position on the forthcoming Australia/European Union Free Trade Agreement. While we have not received an update from DFAT about this agreement, we intend to work with our allies in Europe to draft this letter expressing our views towards the agreement. We will refer to the experiences of the delegates and peasant organisations at the meetings and workshops in Bali. On behalf of AFSA, I agreed to help promote the legitimacy of the Declaration of Peasants’ Rights in Australia by lobbying our national government and discussing this strategy with AFSA and its supporters at our annual Convergence.  

La Via Campesina continues to denounce the impunity with which destructive policies are pushed forth by World Bank and IMF. As a member of LVC, AFSA will continue our campaigns for realising food sovereignty and freeing agriculture from trade negotiations. 

 

 

You can read about the history of the Indonesian resistance to WTO/WB/IMF HERE.

If you'd like to see more photos of this meeting and the events surrounding it, you can see some HERE.

 

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[1] The 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group took place in Bali Nusa Dua, Indonesia, and were held between the Boards of Governors of the IMF and the World Bank Group. Central bankers, ministers of finance and development, parliamentarians, private sector executives, representatives from civil society organizations (progressively becoming key components in a global context often described as neoliberalisation) and academics were given a luxury business travel package to attend and discuss “issues of global concern, including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness.” In addition to the meetings of the Boards of Governors, the Development Committee and the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) convened.

[2] This Working Group is endorsed and has full support of the all the IPC organisations on a specific priority theme. They are open and flexible structures, formed on an ad hoc basis with an open working methodology. They work in coordination with the Facilitating Committee on issues relating to land, indigenous peoples, fisheries, livestock, agroecology, genetic resources and trade.  It is supported by human rights organisations, Focus on the Global South and FIAN International.

[3] According to the IPC Terms of Reference, the delegates formed an agenda for the meetings including discussions on each organisation or country’s regional priorities for food sovereignty and challenges regarding the control of natural resources (land, water, fisheries, forests).

[4] The Indonesian Opposition, the Fair and Prosperous Coalition, argued that as a host of the IMF World Bank meetings, Indonesia is only required to provide venues, simple catering, and accommodation, yet the amount being spent far exceeds that of previous host countries.

[5] Article 1.1 a peasant is any person who engages or who seeks to engage alone, or in association with others or as a community, in small-scale agricultural production for subsistence and/or for the market, and who relies significantly, though not necessarily exclusively, on family or household labour and other non-monetized ways of organizing labour, and who has a special dependency on and attachment to the land

[6] Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Role of Women in Agriculture.<http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/am307e/am307e00.pdf>.

 

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