Robert Buddan, Contributor
Hindus are often ridiculed in the West for treating cows as sacred. But the real tragedy is that the West has failed to treat people as sacred. It treats cows better than people. The French spend more money to subsidise cows than is spent on the incomes of half the world's population.
Not even the World Trade Organisation (WTO) an disentangle this absurdity. It is the absurdity of what is called the world trading system. It is a system that makes cows 'rich' and people poor. The United States spends US$7 billion a year to subsidise agriculture, including cows. Europe spends US$67.5 billion. In the meantime, their aid to agriculture, and the livelihood of people in developing countries, dropped by 56 per cent between 1980 and 2005.
Now, Europe wants to suck the Caribbean into an economic partnership agreement (EPA) and Jamaica says it will sign. This is the same Europe that spends more to fatten European cows than to fatten non-European people. The WTO criticises the United States for subsidising agriculture, and in effect, raising world food prices. It says that 100 million more people could go hungry by the end of 2008 as a result. But, I imagine that American cows will eat well.
GREAT IRISH FAMINE
It isn't the first time that animals are being treated better than people. During the great Irish famine over one million Irish died of hunger between 1846 and 1847. When the potato crop failed, British landlords forced Irish farmers to continue pay rent or face eviction. Yet, there was enough food to feed everyone in Ireland. The British landlords owned the best land and used it to grow barley, wheat and oats, and for raising pigs, sheep and cattle. But they exported the food to England to their profit, while the Irish starved. The sheep and cattle did not die from starvation like the people did. It was more profitable to feed them than to feed the people. They were fed potatoes. Animals still compete with humans for food. Increased demand for animal feed diverted 47 per cent of maize production in the United States last year to feed animals.
The world trading system is unfair and inhumane. The Doha Round of trade negotiations between rich and poor countries seeks to make it fairer. The latest round of negotiations has failed. Over 70 million people in the Caribbean, Central and South America are poor. The Economic Commission for Latin America says another 20-plus million could join their ranks this year because of the food crisis. The Inter-American Development Bank has said that Jamaica's poverty rate could jump from 14 to 26 per cent. The extra cost to people's living expenses will lower GDP in these small Caribbean islands from which money goes out to pay for imported food.
THE COTONOU AGREEMENT
The Cotonou Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries in 2000 tried to work towards a new trading system in which cows would be traded to feed people. The Doha Round started in 2001 within the Contonou framework. The Contonou Agreement was not just about trade. It was about poverty eradication and sustainable development as well. Trade was not assumed by the ACP to be good in its own right. It had to reduce poverty and contribute to development that was sustainable. In other words, it had to reverse the old inhumane system by putting people first ahead of cows.
This was the idea behind negotia-ting an economic partnership agreement with the EU. However, the European Solidarity Towards Equal Participation of People (EUROSTEP) said in 2004, "EPAs, which are an integral part of the Contonou Agreement and are supposed to embody the new ACP-EU trade agreements, are based on four principles - partnership, regional integration, development and compatibility with the WTO. However, a serious point of concern is on their ability to contribute to the general objective of the ACP-EU partnership - poverty eradication."
Nonetheless, last week the Government of Jamaica still insisted that it would sign this agreement, even as more Caribbean countries have doubts. Dr Ken Baugh, the minister of foreign trade, said those who disagreed with the Government were politicising the issue. The prime minister says they suffered from mendicancy. Probably, the seriousness of the matter might get home if the Government were to hear from Edward Seaga, the former JLP leader who, I surmise, would not be willing to sign the EPA.
SEAGA'S VIEW
In his July 13 article, 'EPA-Another Failure in the Making', in The Sunday Gleaner, Seaga asked where would the revenue forgone from Europe come. What evidence is there that our industries can and will even try to compete in Europe? The Government has not produced a study of how much revenue will be lost and how much export earnings it expects. Can we not benefit from European investments, such as Spanish investments in tourism, without the EPA? What new forms of agro-industry are to be promoted to capture niche markets in Europe? These questions leave us to wonder how Parliament can even debate the issue without knowing how many jobs will be gained or lost, and how much economic growth will result and poverty reduced?
If we are not to benefit from the EPA, then we will be poorer for it. The Government might be trying to appease the business sector that sponsored its election. But it should be warned by Seaga's own experience with the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). Jamaica and the CBI countries, he said, demonstrated no capacity to respond to market opportunities in the United States, especially when they had to fight against powerful lobbies trying to protect their markets. Only in a few areas did they have success, namely apparel and some footwear. And strictly speaking, the apparel programme was not part of the CBI. There is no Jamaican industry that is demonstratively going to benefit from the European market. Seaga is more realistic about the limitations of the local private sector. Golding will learn that while the private sector knows how to finance elections, it doesn't know how to finance industry and trade, which is really its business.
HEALTHY TRADE
Mad cow disease has given the cow a new and dangerous place in world trade. It shows that trade is not just about goods. It is about health, safety, food security and responsible, democratic governance. Has the EPA addressed these issues? Is the EPA democratic? Is our government acting responsibly? Food uncertainty, for example, grows around the world. Food prices escalate. Reserves fall and hunger spreads. Climate change makes future yield and harvest projections unpredictable.
It is more expensive to raise cows than to grow grain. Beef is the privilege of a tiny elite. Each kilo of meat this elite consumes is equivalent to eight kilos of grain and requires substantial amounts of precious water to produce. What grain is left over is being used to produce ethanol. Unless we can see how people in developing countries will benefit from the EPA, not just those from the beef exporting ones, we shouldn't sign the agreement.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com
