At the same time more than 30 million people in the US face severe hunger, four million of whom are in California which is a major agri-food exporter. In addition, subsidised exports have not benefitted the vast majority of farmers. The increasing concentration and centralisatin of agricultural production has seen the rise of factory farms and the decline of family farms. Over 50 per cent production comes from only two per cent of farms, while nine per cent of production comes from 73 per cent of farms.

Rules of the game

Much of WTO's power lies in its threat of sanctions against those countries failing to abide by its "rules and disciplines", and is expressed through the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism.

Riding high on its WTOvictories against `trade barriers' in Japan and South Korea (health and safety inspection of agricultural imports and shelf-life of agricultural products), Hungary (export subsidy scheme), the Philippines (pork and poultry import controls), the EU (banana imports) and many others, the US Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky, testified to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, in May last: "We will continue to use the WTO consultation and dispute settlement procedures, as well as our domestic laws, to remove these barriers".

Barshefsky asserted that in the mid-term review of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture this year, the US government will demand the removal of import restrictions on genetically engineered foods, the further removal of health and safety inspections of food imports, the abolition of state trading enterprises (including wheat and grain boards), and will ensure that US companies benefit the most from China's planned entry into the WTO. While opposition from othercountries on all of these issues is expected, the US government's approach to the WTO is clear: "... the solution is to be very, very aggressive in using all of the tools at our disposal to crack open what is clearly a world of opportunity."

There are no exceptions when it comes to those countries with less bargaining power in the WTO. For example, the Indian government recently requested that import restrictions be phased out gradually due to Balance of Payments (BoP) problems.

There is a provision in General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs (Gatt) that enables a country to impose quota restrictions on imports if it faces BoP problems to prevent an excessive outflow of foreign exchange. But the industrialised countries have effectively withdrawn this provision by preventing its application. When a number of developing countries represented the WTO BoP Committee supported the Indian government's proposal, the IMF intervened to support the industrialised countries' position.

The IMF claimed that since Indiahas $22.5 billion in foreign currency reserves, it does not have a BoP problem. But these `reserves' are calculated to include short term capital flows and portfolio investments which do not reflect the real situation of India's BoP crisis. Nonetheless the WTO ruled against India's request.

Harmonised destruction

Under the WTO, national and sub-national laws and regulations must be "harmonised" with international standards. Although these international standards are supposed to be a basis for local laws and regulations, any local standards which exceed these international standards are labelled unfair trade barriers. Since the definition of new international standards under the WTO is determined by private industry there is an inevitable downward harmonisation.

This harmonised destruction is most evident in the implementation of the WTO Agreement on Sanitary & Phytosanitary Standards (SPS) and the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The SPS Agreement concernsharmonisation of health and hygiene inspection of imports and TRIPS deals with the harmonisation of copyright and related rights, industrial designs, trademarks, geographical indications, patents, plant varieties protection and integrated circuits.

Just like structural adjustment under the IMF, harmonisation under the WTO has targeted food self-sufficiency food security and food safety as barriers to capitalist accumulation. We should be clear that the WTO is fundamentally opposed to a sustainable agriculture which guarantees food security, fairer redistribution and ecological protection, precisely because such practices restrict the profit-maximisation drive and expansion of agri-food TNCs.

Given this situation it makes no sense to demand food security, clauses or social clauses in the multilateral agreements under the WTO. If food security, environmental or social clauses were to be included in these agreements, then it could only mean that the definition of what this means has been redefined andcommercialised. Moreover, this does not resolve the real problem, that it is authoritarian and democratic governments alike which are adhering to this and redirecting state power more comprehensively in favour of TNCs and against the working people.

Proponents of free trade present the WTO as both a necessary and inevitable outcome of globalisation. However, we should recall that the WTO is as much a product of the neo-liberal globalisation project as it is a powerful mechanism for the enforcement of this project. It is not inevitable, and it is certainly not natural. Moreover we have seen that the WTO is fundamentally hostile towards democracy.

If we accept this reality, then the widespread grassroots pressure on national governments to withdraw from the WTO, and the mass movements worldwide calling for the abolition of the WTO, present us with the basis for a long-term strategy for opposing the harmonised destruction of the world food system.

The author is education programme organiser (Indonesia)of International Union of Food and Agriculture