Page 2 of 2 US, Korea fight over
food By Christine Ahn
such as Dole
and Sunkist will force a 59% drop in the price of
tangerines and result in a loss to Korean farmers
of more than $200 million.
Seeing how the
FTA will seal their fate, thousands of peasant
farmers swam 80 kilometers off the south coast to
confront more than 10,000 Korean riot police to
make clear that they weren't
going
down without a fight.
President Roh
Moo-hyun has promised to set aside $119 billion to
aid farmers hurt by the FTA, but according to Kim
Chee-hyung of the Korean Alliance Against the FTA,
this "is the 10-year sum of what the government
already spends annually, and only a small portion
of that amount translates into actual income".
Current subsidies haven't offset the negative
impacts of liberalizing Korean agriculture, so
peasant farmers are highly skeptical of this
promised arrangement.
Dismantling
Korea's food safety laws Not only will the
FTA force the extinction of South Korean farmers,
it is working to undermine, and already has, the
country's food-safety laws. As a precondition even
to begin talks, Seoul agreed to re-import US beef,
which it banned in 2003 after the discovery of
mad-cow disease in the United States. US boneless
beef and beef from cattle under 30 months old -
considered a lower risk of containing bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - can now enter
South Korea.
But since the ban was lifted
last December, US beef shipments have been
routinely returned because they contained bone
fragments. Last month, South Korea received a
shipment from the US of a complete cattle spine,
which has prompted Seoul to halt beef imports
pending an explanation from the US Department of
Agriculture. In response, Democrat Max Baucus,
chairman of the US Senate Finance Committee, is
threatening to block passage of the FTA unless
South Korea changes its food-safety laws. To South
Koreans, US beef is not just a matter of trade. It
has become the measuring stick of public health
and food safety in Korea.
US biotech
companies, running out of places to which to
export agricultural products containing
genetically modified organisms because of
worldwide opposition, have turned to the FTA as a
way to undermine the Cartagena Protocol of the
Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral
treaty that imposes labeling rules on agricultural
and food exports.
According to media
reports, the US and South Korea signed a
memorandum of understanding that stipulates that
when Korea ratifies the Cartagena Protocol, it
will not apply the labeling rules to agricultural
and food imports from the US, which is not a party
to the treaty.
Even an April 17 press
release from the Biotechnology Industry
Organization refers to a "separate understanding"
on agricultural biotechnology. The US and Canada,
also not a signatory, put this waiver into place
with Mexico under NAFTA. According to the Korean
Alliance against the Korus FTA, the side deal will
drastically weaken South Korea's legislative
authority to implement the Cartagena Protocol on
Biosafety.
FTA's future In 20
years, will Korean meals consist of rice from
Arkansas, beef from Montana and fruit from
California? If global food trends are any
indication, this scenario has a high probability
of coming true. But the costs will be enormous,
not just for South Korea's diminishing
agricultural biodiversity, but in terms of the
people's general sense of security, as they will
be beholden to US-dominated agribusinesses for
food imports.
Millions of South Korean
farmers - most of them in their 60s - will either
die in poverty or seek work in an already
saturated urban job market. More than 50% of South
Korea's workforce consists of "irregular" workers,
meaning they don't have the same rights as workers
with benefits, including the right to unionize.
"The fight against the FTA is a class
struggle, and who wins in this fight will
determine the outcome," said Seo Jun-sub of the
Korean Alliance.
Roh is seeking
ratification of the FTA before the end of his term
this year. In the US, the Korea FTA may come up
for a vote in Congress this year, but it all
depends on how the Peru and Panama FTAs fare. So
far, Democratic Party presidential candidates
Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have come out
against the Korea FTA, siding with the automobile
bloc led by Democratic Senator Carl Levin. But the
alliance of agribusinesses, biotech firms,
pharmaceutical giants, and financial-services
firms might be too powerful in the end.
It
may all come down to the resistance of Korean
peasants and trade unionists against the WTO and
now the FTA. Whether leading the procession of
thousands to tear down the metal barricades in
Cancun, Mexico, or swimming across freezing waters
at the WTO meeting in Hong Kong, South Koreans
have been at the forefront of dismantling the
perception that these global trade institutions
are beyond the people's reach.
Christine Ahn is a policy
analyst with the Korea Policy Institute and a
contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
