The militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) today urged agriculture secretary Luis “Cito” Lorenzo to immediately issue a moratorium on importation of agricultural products in the face of the massive flooding of imported agricultural products brought by the policy dictates of the World Trade Organization – Agreement on Agriculture (WTO-AoA).

KMP secretary general Danilo Ramos chided that, “it is the government’s responsibility to impose a moratorium on the importation of agricultural products.”

Lorenzo recently urged farmers’ groups to fight “cheaper imports” by filing trade remedy measures against subsidized agricultural products imported from abroad.

“The right approach to counter the negative impacts of globalization in Philippine agriculture is for the government to subsidize local production, marketing, procurement and the immediate withdrawal of the country’s membership from the WTO,” the peasant leader said.

The peasant leader belied that agricultural products from abroad are “cheaper” than locally produced agricultural products.

“It is not true that imported agricultural products are cheaper than our local farmers produce. Only the “landing price” is bargain basement priced but in the local market, it matches with the high costs of our local agricultural products,” Ramos clarified.

“Local cartels’ monopoly is already strong and established. They (cartels) have the capacity to control pricing in the market. Filipino consumers cannot afford to buy this so-called cheap agricultural imports,” he added.

The KMP reiterated calls for the government to immediately take agriculture out of the WTO saying that, “after nine years of the country’s membership to the WTO, even the government admitted that unbridled agricultural trade liberalization resorted to the “death” of our local agriculture and farmers.”

The peasant group said that, “$5.2 billion of agricultural trade deficit, from 1995-2001, we suffered is enough basis for the Philippines to abandon and reject our country’s “commitments” to the WTO.” #
 

KMP - 11 August 2003