By Martin Khor
BANGALORE — Half a million Indian farmers took part in a day-long procession and rally in this south Indian city on October 2 to protest against proposals in the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. The farmers claim that the proposals would have devastating effects on their livelihoods in general and on their control of seeds in particular.
Tens of thousands of farmers began streaming into Bangalore, capital of Karnataka state, in the early morning, many of them travelling in more than 1000 buses chartered by their organisations. They then set out on a 10-kilometre procession through the city, collecting a larger and larger crowd along the way.
When they reached the public park for the rally, the crowd stretched for as far as the eye could see. Estimates of the number of people at the rally ranged from 500,000 to 1 million, and organisers claimed the crowd could have been even larger had there not been a devastating earthquake a day before in the nearby state of Maharashtra.
The procession and rally were organised by the KRRS, the Karnataka Farmers' Association. Most of the farmers at the rally were members of the KRRS but a sizeable minority came from other states. Leaders of farmers' organisations in nine of India's 22 states made speeches during the rally.
Among the guests at the rally were scientists, representatives of farmers' organisations and groups involved with agriculture and the environment from several Third World countries including Ethiopia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Thailand and South Korea.
The farmers pledged to protect their "sovereignty over our seeds". They waved their green shawls, symbol of the farmers' movement, to show approval of eight resolutions. They included a call to reject the draft agreement of the Uruguay Round, to fight the patenting of agricultural seeds and plant resources and to oppose the entry of multinational companies into Indian agriculture.
The rally adopted an alternative action program should the provisions of the draft be accepted by the Indian government. The program includes the free exchange of seeds between Third World farmers, blocking the flow of biological wealth from the South through direct action and the protection and development of "community intellectual property rights" of the farmers.
It was announced that Karnataka farmers had decided to establish an international research centre in order to help develop community seed banks and to protect the intellectual rights of the communities.
The Dunkel draft (put together under former GATT director-general Arthur Dunkel) is a comprehensive set of proposals that would open up the economies of Third World countries, including their agriculture and service sectors, to competition from foreign firms and foreign products and services.
The proposals, under a section called TRIPs (trade-related intellectual property rights), also include the compulsory introduction of patent and other "intellectual property" laws in all member countries. These would enable transnational corporations to obtain monopolistic protection over their technologies and products and force Third World countries to pay higher prices for these goods.
The Bangalore rally is the latest in a series of actions organised by the KRRS protesting against the government's economic reforms, which in recent years have encouraged foreign firms to invest in agriculture.
In February, a thousand farmers broke into the main office of the giant American grain company Cargill in Bangalore and made a bonfire of its office documents. In March, 200,000 farmers held a rally in Delhi. In July, farmers burnt down a Cargill seed plant, which was then under construction. The KRRS has also announced it will pull out seedlings in farms under contract to produce sunflower, maize and sorghum seeds for Cargill.
In his address to the rally, KRRS leader Nanjundaswamy said the KRRS' seeds campaign was aimed at protecting the rights of farmers worldwide. Sovereignty of nations and peoples over their seeds was the basis for food security and national development.
"We do not recognise intellectual property rights on biological materials being granted to companies for their private profit", Nanjundaswamy told the rally. "The knowledge on which crops to plant and which seeds to use was evolved by generations of farmers, and not by the corporations. Therefore, we do not accept that they have a right to profit from our knowledge at our expense ... Seeds should be allowed to be exchanged freely among farmers in the country and the world." [Third World Network via Pegasus.]