Jagjit Kaur Plahe

Worlds apart: The WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture and the right to food in developing countries

This article explores the implications of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Agriculture for the right to food in the global South. In a context in which a worldwide backlash has developed against the World Trade Organization (WTO), the politics of the Doha Round negotiations are analyzed from a food rights perspective. It is argued that since 2004 attention in the WTO has shifted from overarching human rights concerns toward a focus on technical detail constraining developing countries from acting to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to food.

The Implications of India's Amended Patent Regime: stripping away food security and farmers' rights?

Abstract This paper analyses the Indian governments policy response to the Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (trips) and examines the implications of this response for food security and farmers. trips has become one of the most controversial agreements of the wto. This is because of its wide and far-reaching mandate and its complex socioeconomic implications. It is argued that the changes made to the Indian Patents Act in response to trips will compromise the food sector and the rights of small farmers by conferring strong rights on upstream agents who produce proprietary agricultural inputs using biotechnology. Not only are these agents able to exert monopoly price control over agricultural inputs for 20 years, they also have the right to determine the conditions under which farmers and researchers use patented processes and products. The paper outlines policy options available to the Indian government to tighten the scope of patentability in the food sector.

Food Security and Traditional Knowledge in India: The Issues

ABSTRACT In this first paper, we explain why traditional knowledge is an important theme in the study of Indian agriculture, especially given the crises routinely facing poor, smallholder farmers. We begin with an overview of some of the key authors who have written about the problems facing small farmers both within and outside India. Different authors have focused on different aspects of the benefits that can be derived from the local knowledge and skills of farmers, but these do not always pertain to organic farming. Our interest in organic farming is specifically about ‘traditional’ knowledge. With the industrialisation of agriculture in India and elsewhere, many poor, small farmers have been deskilled and placed into vulnerable positions. Traditional knowledge has been undermined, overwhelmed or has survived only in fragments. How ‘traditional knowledge’ might be retrieved, reinvented, reintroduced and modified so as to create a farmer-driven, sustainable and biodiverse agriculture is our concern. In the final section of this paper, we analyse the four situations we have been working on as examples of the possibilities and challenges facing the revival of ‘traditional knowledge’ in the villages of Kolkata, central India and Sikkim.

Livelihoods crises in Vidarbha, India: food sovereignty through traditional farming systems as a possible solution

ABSTRACT The Vidarbha region in Maharashtra, India, home to 3.4 million smallholder farmers, is a major cotton-producing region in one of the wealthiest Indian states. However, between 1995 and 2013, more than 60,000 farmers took their own lives. Many of these suicides have been linked to extreme debt created by the expensive mono-cropping of Bt cotton. Some farming households have responded to these pressures by abandoning Bt cotton growing and turning to sustainable agriculture using traditional mixed-cropping methods. Yet the question remains: have the changes produced better livelihoods in Vidarbha? Using a food sovereignty framework, we assess the impact of these changes through an analysis of a 200-household survey across six districts in Vidarbha. We also explore the meaning of food sovereignty for those who practise it, seeking to better understand some of the complexities and experiences associated with the term.

Extending Traditional Food Knowledge into New Marketing Institutions for Small Farmers in India

ABSTRACT Small farmers, who are normally dependent on marketing intermediaries, have formed themselves into co-operatives in the Indian states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and have started to sell their produce directly to consumers via retail outlets, the Internet, urban franchises, mobile vans, rural food hubs and as branded products. The key engine for this marketing experiment is the Sahaja Aharam Producer Company Limited (SAPCO), a producer organisation. SAPCO has tried to create new supply chains that guarantee that the produce it sells complies with the quality standards needed to certify the foods as ‘organic’. SAPCO is an initiative of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) which has taken up the bulk of the financial and administrative burden of managing the company. The revival of traditional knowledge for organic farming and the marketing of organic produce has invariably required the intervention of external agents such as CSA. In the final section, we assess the achievements of SAPCO from the viewpoint of the small farmers who belong to the producer co-operatives that make up SAPCOs membership. Our key research question is whether it has been possible to scale up the production and marketing of small farmers’ output and create a new supply chain independent of local intermediaries.

The marginalisation and resurgence of traditional knowledge systems in India: agro-ecological ‘islands of success’ or a wave of change?

ABSTRACT India is in the grip of an agrarian crisis. Economic, social, environmental and political forces have adversely affected the relationship between the small-scale primary producer and the production process. In the context of this crisis, traditional knowledge-inspired food systems have given rise to ‘islands of success’ that have allowed small and marginal farmers to reclaim their livelihoods across the country. In this paper, we analyse three different islands of success using an agro-ecological framework, arguing that such islands of success based on traditional knowledge are becoming an increasingly necessary approach to agriculture. However, political will, political engagement and effective policies that support traditional knowledge in agriculture are required for these islands of success to become waves of change.

An Evaluation of Australia's Proposal for Improved Market Access for Products from Least Developed Countries

ABSTRACT Australias policy to provide duty free and quota free access to all goods from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) came into effect on 1 July 2003. The policy decision is partly based on an Australian Government report (Productivity Commission, 2002). It contends that not only will the removal of tariffs on goods originating from LDCs have little impact on Australian consumers or producers, but also that there will be little overall economic benefit flowing to LDCs. In this paper we examine the evidence more thoroughly, and argue that the benefits to LDCs are understated in the Productivity Commission report.