On poverty, economy and environment – MONLAR disputes BOI Chairman’s views

from the Asian Tribune

By Quintus Perera

Colombo, Sarath Fernando, Movement for Land and Agrculture Reforms (MONLAR) indicated that they are disputing the views expressed by BOI Chairman on poverty reduction, economic growth and global warming which were discussed at a meeting convened by Foreign Ministry on Global Warming.

Fernando says while the indication made by BOI Chairman that it was necessary to think of ending global poverty before they think of controlling global warming has some semblance of validity, the contention of BOI Chairman that to alleviate poverty, economies need industrialization, needs careful thought, as industrialization leads to emissions and as higher economic growth is achieved through increased disparities.

Fernando indicated that the example of US having a per capita income USD 45,596 compared to Sri Lanka at USD 1558 to say that what countries such as Sri Lanka is to try and achieve that kind of industrialization and rapid economic growth as the way to reduce poverty, would not persist and is not correct.

Assuming that higher per capita income automatically contributes to poverty reduction is obviously incorrect. In many countries, including US higher economic growth is achieved through increased disparities. Growth trickling down to reduce poverty has been a theory that has failed in many countries. Fernando said that one needs to examine whether in US itself this process of growth is reducing poverty. In many countries it has not, although some institutions such as the World Bank and proponents of globalization and global expansion of market keep holding to this theory stubbornly ignoring contrary evidence.

Fernando said that If they take the case of Sri Lanka, they have tried to move in this direction of faster economic growth, achieving industrialization, expansion of exports by inviting foreign investment for industry and expert agriculture over the last 30 years. Sri Lanka has also tried to promote the private sector big businesses as the “engine of economic growth”

He said the results have been tragic. Poverty and disparities have increased; domestic food production has gone down. Huge expenditure to provide infrastructure, tax concessions and other incentives to such foreign and local capital, has made the country seriously indebted and these debts have been transferred increasingly to the poorer sector by way of high cost of living.

Growth has been far below expected levels. Breakdown in domestic agriculture and privatization of trade and also essential services such as health and education has added more burdens on the poor.

Fernando points out that therefore, the assumption that faster growth and industrialization is the only way to reduce poverty is questionable. It is true to Sri Lanka and also valid for the whole world. Richness of a limited group of people in rich countries is achieved only through massive extraction, exploitation and plunder of nature’s resources and human potential. Growth of US and other similar economies have been at the expenses of destruction of nature worldwide and of human potential.

He said that the failure of the world, the global institutions such as the World Bank and the G-8 etc to develop effective strategies for reduction of hunger and poverty is obviously because all their strategies have tried to combine two contradictory processes. Fernando said that Increased plunder of nature and human beings can not be combined with reduction poverty and hunger. The first process increases poverty while the second claims to attempt poverty reduction.

The US can claim that they have taken extensive steps towards reduction of pollution and emissions in their own country. But can they claim that the impact of its economic expansion into other regions of the world contributes to such measures.

He pointed out that hunger, poverty and environmental destruction demand a radical change in the way the world should look at the survival needs of human beings as well as of nature. A large proportion of the human population is now facing a threat to their very survival. Global expansion of market as planned is excluding many poor people, small scale producers, poorer consumers from the market.

Access to living resources and livelihoods is being denied. The Global market expects such people to “ disappear” since they are not needed in the market. This situation is true of Sri Lanka too, if one looks at the very alarming figures of rural poverty, malnutrition and anemia and take into consideration that food prices have increased tremendously and are predicted to increase in the future too.

Yet Fernando maintains that eradication of poverty and fighting global warming can be achieved simultaneously as if they approach the issue of poverty reduction and eradication of hunger in the right way, it could simultaneously contribute to reduction of global warming and climate change too.

The Government of Sri Lanka, he said, having tried out strategies of achieving faster economic growth, industrialization and export oriented agriculture, through attraction of private foreign investment has now begun to realize that much greater emphasis should be given to domestic food production by small scale farmers.

This is the thinking behind the Programme initiated last September, “Let us grow and build the nation” ( Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu ), where building 4 million small scale home gardens is envisaged. If we look at this approach more comprehensively what is needed and what is possible is to make the full use of the potential of small scale farmers and the potential of nature’s contribution to ecological agriculture.

He said that small scale farmers and rural communities can effectively adopt methods of eco-friendly agriculture. In this approach it is not only possible to produce food at very low cost, eliminate the use of expensive and harmful chemical inputs, revive natures ability to regenerate it self, improve natural fertility of the soil, water retention ability of the soil, avoid chemical pollution of food, soil, water and air and increase bio diversity. Protection and propergation of indigenous seeds and planting material, making better use of indigenous knowledge in ecological agriculture. The potential contribution to such a process by small farmers is much higher than in large scale industrialized agriculture.

It needs to be recognized that the poor people who are excluded from the market in the process of globalization and process of achieving faster growth and industrialization can be much more effective in developing strategies for eradication of their poverty. Fernando points out that as is well known, there is a serious crisis in agriculture all over the world. In industrialized countries such as the US, Europe etc. there is a crisis of over production and a need to give very rich large scale farmers, large subsidies to make their products competitive in the international market.

Such agricultural marketing can only survive by destroying the possibility of millions of small farmers both in the developing countries as well as in their own developed countries to be engaged in agriculture.

It is estimated that if the present trends of global market expansion and conversion into larger scale farming continues, it would result in about half the world population of small farmers would be reduced to destitution within the next few decades. In India it is estimated that about 400 million such small farmers will suffer the same fate.

All these demand a transformation of the way agriculture is done. Ecological Agriculture is increasingly recognized as the best way to reduce hunger and poverty of such people. “Via Campasena” the world’s largest movement of small scale farmers and peasants has declared the concept of “food sovereignty” which says that people, the poor and small scale farmers, particularly have the right not only to have food, but also the right to decide who should produce food and what kind of food should be produced and by whom.

Large farmers movements such as the MST in Brazil have decided that they would promote small scale ecological agriculture as a means of achieving food sovereignty.

Therefore, Fernando said that it is necessary and useful to look at the potential of such small scale, ecological agriculture by millions of small farmers as a way of eradicating hunger and poverty while fighting against global warming at the same time. Future of the world, survival of all forms of life, particularly of the poor who are excluded and are destined to “disappear “ due to their inability to enter into the globalized market lies not in a process that further destroys nature’s potential, but in a process that can recover and restore the already destroyed “capacity of nature to regenerate itself.