by Mike Gardner
The USA’s National Family Farm Coalition warned at a rally last May that food safety as well as farmers’ livelihoods could be under threat if plans for a Transatlantic Free Trade Area were to materialise.
The National Family Farm Coalition was among a wide range of civil society groups protesting against a Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) in Arlington, USA, last May. Opponents of TAFTA warn that it could undermine food safety and ruin farmers’ livelihoods.
TAFTA aims to create a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade area covering Europe and North America. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an agreement based on the scheme and under negotiation between the United States and the European Union since last year, could be combined with free trade agreements that the USA has already signed with Canada and Mexico, resulting in a huge free trade area in the two continents.
One of the chief aspects of transatlantic negotiations is the mutual recognition by the USA and the EU of rules and regulations on trade and investment. Here, the focus is not so much on tariff barriers, but on what the US government refers to as “behind the border” policies such as health, environmental and financial protection. Eliminating these “trade irritants”, as they have been called by multinational corporations, is referred to as a “reduction of non-tariff barriers” in the on-going EU-US talks.
TAFTA opponents fear that it could meet demands raised by lobbying groups such as Food and Drink Europe, who represent the major food companies and are calling for the facilitation of the presence of low-level genetically modified crops. The European Commission’s proposal to introduce an EU-US Regulatory Corporation Council to scrutinise regulations, moving decisions away from democratic scrutiny, is a further contentious issue. And opponents are also critical of TAFTA’s provisions on trade-investor dispute settlement, which would enable e.g. EU companies to challenge US regulations at international tribunals, bypassing US courts, with US companies enjoying the same privilege in Europe.
Topics that were addressed at the May rally in Arlington ranged from digital privacy rights through the regulation of high street banks to environmental issues such as fracking to obtain shale gas. According to Cathy Ozer of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), negotiations with the EU are threatening programmes supporting local economies and family farms in the USA. Ozer also argues that it is wrong to believe that increased farm exports are necessary for farm prosperity. Instead, she says, the contrary is true: farm prosperity largely depends on the internal regulatory and environmental standards of a particular country and does not rely on exports.
“Corporations on both sides of the Atlantic are also targeting food safety and consumer measures affecting everything from GMO labelling to policies under the recent Food Safety Modernization Act,” Ozer warned in Arlington. New legislation on food safety was adopted just three years ago. “Knocking down progress on food safety and GMOs through TTIP further threatens food security here in the US and across the globe,” she added.
The NFFC was founded as a non-profit organisation in 1986 and represents family farm and rural groups facing the challenge of recession in rural communities. It seeks to empower family farmers by reducing the corporate control of agriculture and promoting a more socially just farm and food policy. The NFFC supports policy alternatives ensuring that farmers receive a fair price for what they produce and have access to the credit and land they need to remain in business. It promotes new programmes and policies that capture a greater share of agricultural profits in rural communities.
One of the NFFC’s focal areas is food sovereignty, the right of people to decide what they want to eat and to ensure that agriculture in their community is fair and healthy for everyone. In its Vision Statement, the organisation refers to “empowered communities everywhere working together democratically to advance a food system that ensures health, justice and dignity for all … Farmers, ranchers and fishers will have control over their lands, water, seeds and livelihoods, and all people will have access to healthy, local, delicious food.”
The NFFC is a member of La Via Campesina, an international movement of family farmer, fisher, forester, worker and indigenous groups across the world. Together with Grassroots International, which supports social movements advancing human rights to land, water and food, these groups are working at local, national and international level to defend food sovereignty.
More information: National Family Farm Coalition http://nffc.net/