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agriculture | farmers | food

Goff: Speech to New Zealand Meat Board AGM
11-Mar-2008 Scoop
NZ Trade Minister Goff outlines New Zealand’s FTA roadmap for the meat & wool industry in key markets.
Pawar urges SAARC countries to strengthen SAFTA
5-Mar-2008
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday urged the SAARC countries to strengthen the regional trade and pointed out that the region does not correspond to the so-called natural trading partner hypothesis and "SAFTA’s economic relevance is being questioned".
Thai-Chinese FTA leaves a bad taste with garlic growers
3-Mar-2008 Earth Times
A partial free trade agreement (FTA) between Thailand and China has led to a decline in Thailand’s garlic output by 22 per cent in three years, a study revealed Sunday.
Japan stance threatens free trade
29-Feb-2008 The Australian
The Japanese Government has refused to offer Australia any serious concessions on agricultural import tariffs, the major barrier to a free trade agreement between the two countries.
USTR says beef can change timing of FTA approval
28-Feb-2008
The United States does not intend to change the order of ratifying the three remaining free trade agreements (FTA), but South Korea’s resolution of the beef issue would definitely change the timing of congressional approval of its FTA, the top trade negotiator said Wednesday.
“Free Trade”: Is it working for farmers? Comparing 2007 to 1988
27-Feb-2008 NFU
For farmers, so-called “Free Trade” agreements do two things simultaneously: By removing tariffs, quotas, and duties, these agreements erase the economic borders between nations and force the world’s one billion farmers into a single, hyper-competitive market. At the same time, these agreements facilitate waves of agribusiness mergers that nearly eliminate competition for these corporations.
Peru: Four dead after government crackdown on protests against US trade deal
27-Feb-2008 Upside Down World
A two-day national agrarian strike against a pending Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States ended on Wednesday February 20th, leaving four farmers dead after President Alan Garcia declared a state of emergency and ordered a violent crackdown.
Japan eyes exemptions in Aust FTA talks
26-Feb-2008
Australia is expected to oppose the exemption of five items from the envisaged FTA with Japan: wheat, rice, beef, dairy and sugar.
Regional banana exporters uneasy as Latin America pressures EU
23-Feb-2008
The Caribbean Banana Exporters’ Association (CBEA) is expressing grave concern that the European Union (EU) might bow to pressure from Latin American banana producing countries and reduce its 176 euros per tonne tariff for bananas from that region.
"Via Campesina, from anti-WTO to anti-FTA"
21-Feb-2008 VOP
Interview with Jun Gi-Hoan, General Secretary of Korean Peasants League
Striking farmers shut access to Peru’s Machu Picchu
19-Feb-2008 Reuters
Peruvian farmers upset over a free trade deal with the United States blocked rail service to the famous Inca ruins at Machu Picchu on Monday and paralyzed vast swaths of the Andean country by halting traffic on key highways.
US-Korea Understanding on Agricultural Biotechnology (2007)
18-Feb-2008 Korean Advanced Farmers Federation
Negotiated on the sidelines of the US-Korea FTA, in March 2007.
Mexican farmers cite surge in corn imports from US
13-Feb-2008 Hoover’s
A group mainly representing Mexican family farmers denounced Monday that imports of white corn from the United States increased 384 percent after last month’s NAFTA-mandated end to trade barriers in agriculture.
GM trials in India threaten trade ties
13-Feb-2008 Times of India
India finds itself increasingly on the defensive in agricultural trade for permitting field trials across the country in a host of genetically modified food crops — rice, brinjal, okra, potato, tomato and groundnuts — and thereby exposing conventional crops to the risk of transgenic contamination. A case in point is a rather dodgy no-contamination certificate that the regulator, Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, was forced to give two months ago in response to a restriction imposed by Russia on import of rice, groundnuts and sesame seeds from India.
Corporate globalisation: Standing at the end of the road
13-Feb-2008 CounterPunch
Corporate globalization, savagely embodied by NAFTA, is not just a threat to Mexican farmers and rural villagers. The economic, health, and social damage created by industrial agriculture, corporate globalization, and the patenting and gene-splicing of transgenic plants and animals, are inexorably leading to universal "bioserfdom " for farmers, deteriorating health for consumers, a destabilized climate (energy intensive industrial agriculture and long-distance food transportation and processing account, directly or indirectly, for 40% of all climate-disrupting greenhouse gases), tropical deforestation, and a rapid depletion of oil supplies.
Mexican farmers stage protest over US imports
1-Feb-2008 Reuters
Thousands of Mexican farmers, some herding cows, flooded into the capital on Thursday and set a tractor on fire to demand government protection against cheap US farm imports under NAFTA.
Food sovereignty and free-trade agreements
31-Jan-2008 Via Campesina
From 11th to 13th January 2008, 21 delegates and members of Via Campesina, from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Peru, South Korea, Norway, France, Haiti, Mali, Italy, the United States, Mozambique, Turkey, the Basque Country and Nepal, met in Dijon for a strategic seminar on the theme “Food Sovereignty and Free-Trade Agreements” convened and organised by the Via Campesina’s Food Sovereignty work committee.
NAFTA awakens the ghost of Pancho Villa
27-Jan-2008 Newspaper Tree
Convened two years before the 100th anniversary of the 1910 Mexican Revolution and the 200th anniversary of the 1810 War for Independence, Mexico’s latest farmer protest is now gathering force with strong historical and political overtones. Farmers intend to follow the same route that Pancho Villa took on his 1914 march into Mexico City, and on which an anti-NAFTA protest was conducted by protestors on horseback in 1999
Mexico anti-NAFTA march moves to capital
21-Jan-2008 Prensa Latina
The Mexican farmer march against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will enter Sunday the city of Chihuahua on its way to this capital.
Agriculture takes a toll on Japanese economy
14-Jan-2008 New Straits Times
Free-trade deals had been the linchpin of a perceived strategy to break long-standing policy deadlocks in Japan, and to pry open agriculture to market mechanisms and competition. But uncertainty has set in.