Around 75 progressive, people’s organisations across the globe signed a full-page declaration on February 16, 2021 edition of the New York Times wherein “citizens of the world” promised to support protesting Indian farmers in their fight for livelihood.
Paid by the Justice for Migrant Women organisation, the declaration calls upon human rights champions around the world to join and condemn the abuses against India’s farmers, labourers, protesters demanding the withdrawal of the three farm laws and the legalisation of Minimum Support Price (MSP.) “Use your voice to call on India to respect the core principles of democracy, including the rights of all people to protest peacefully, demand accountability and envision a safer, healthier and more just future for all people on the planet,” said the full page ad.
This huge show of solidarity comes days after the popular American football championship Super Bowl featured a 30-second commercial on February 7, 2021 in favour of the on-going farmers struggle in India, calling the movement “the largest protest in history” said The Hindu. The 30-second spot for Super Bowl 2021 cost $5.5 million for a viewership that was around 100 million in 2020.
The commercial began with a quote from Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This was followed by snapshots of the farmers’ tractor parade and their border camps overlaid with text alleging human rights violations against protesters. Punjabi music also played as the screen flashed the words “No Farmers, No Food, No Future.”
Farmers, peasants and activists in Korea, Indonesia, Canada, UK, Brazil, Kenya, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Portugal have also sent their messages of solidarity to protesting farmers in India.
In a statement sent to the Indian farmers organisations, The Landless Workers Movement – MST, Brazil, one of the largest social movements in Latin America, supported “the demands of the Indian peasants that the government reverse this legislation, and that the government introduce a law that guarantees a Minimum Support Price for their products, so that under no circumstances are farmers forced to sell their products at a loss.”
The largest US federation of unions American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Carribean Agroecology Institute, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, the Hispanic Federation, Hindus for Human Rights, and many other farmers, labour and people’s organisations came forward to support the farmers in their battle against the three laws. Supporters sent a message to farmers that said: “To Indian farmers: You have ignited one of the largest protests in human history. From the fields of Punjab to the villages of Kerala to the streets of New Delhi, your voices echo around the world. Now we raise our voices in solidarity.”
More recently, on February 19, 2021, US farmers and food justice advocates issued a statement expressing solidarity with the farmers on protest at the borders of India’s national capital for over two and a half months. Their full statement is as below (available online at: https://www.iatp.org):
We Stand with India’s Farmers! Now Let’s Connect the Dots Between the Forces of Neoliberalism that Stifle Farmers, from India to the U.S.
U.S. farmers and allied food justice advocates express our solidarity with the farmer protests in India against the unjust farm laws that will increase agribusiness’ stranglehold over their food system. India’s farmers have mobilized to create one of the world’s most vibrant protests in history, camping on the outskirts of New Delhi for more than two and a half months. Their rallying cry is to repeal the three unjust laws that were passed without their knowledge or consultation. We extend our solidarity to countless farmers who are peacefully and boldly standing up for their rights and dignity, with other farmers from across the globe.
One of the key demands of the movement is for farmers to receive a Minimum Support Price (MSP)—currently assured for just a few crops—for all produce, including vegetables, which are essential for healthy diets. This would ensure that farmers in India, already burdened by huge debts, receive a fair price for their produce. MSP is the price at which the Indian government also buys staple grains, like wheat and rice, from farmers for its public food programs so that the poor can access subsidized grains. While the Indian government only procures a small percentage for its food programs, the MSP is a key price signal to other traders in India, and it ensures that farmers receive a fair price for these specific crops.
We recognize the role of the U.S. government in creating the conditions that have led to these repressive laws. The U.S. has been a key opponent of India’s limited use of MSP at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S., with Australia, Canada and European allies, has claimed that India’s MSP distorts trade.
But, that is not surprising: the U.S. government has been eroding the concept of parity (similar to MSP in India) at home for decades. There is an opportunity for the Biden administration to shift U.S. trade policy to allow other countries to support fair markets for their farmers and shift agricultural policy to ensure that our food providers make a living wage.
While the U.S. agricultural sector receives inordinately large support compared to many countries, access to that support remains inequitable. In particular, Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian-Pacific and other people of color producers, who lack secure land tenure and are concentrated in vegetable and small-scale cattle sectors, have been excluded historically. Support flows to larger agribusiness farming operations instead of the independent family farmers whose voices we amplify.
Let us be clear: what the Indian farmers are enduring now happened in the U.S. almost four decades ago. The Reagan era furthered the farm crisis through deliberate federal policy changes, with systematic erosion of parity prices and other deregulatory efforts. “Get big or get out” has been our government’s mantra. Farmers with the means to consolidate have been rewarded for growing monoculture commodities. Tribal nations and traditional producers as well as small farmers who have always practiced or shifted to diversified agroecological farming have effectively been subsidizing the U.S. agriculture sector. It is rare for these food producers to make a living without supplemental income. Unsurprisingly, farm suicides in rural America are 45% higher than the rest of the population.
The WTO has indeed worsened an already unequal playing field between the Global South and Global North. What every nation-state can do, at the very least, is protect small farmers from deregulatory efforts, such as the three farm laws in India, that diminish the limited bargaining power that farmers have, pushing them off their farms. In the U.S., it is said that the previous administration’s agenda, “focused primarily around deregulation and increasing aid to commodity farmers while cutting food aid to needy families, [which] will have long-lasting implications.”
The Biden-Harris administration is off to a promising start, yet much work remains to be done on parityand environmental and racial justice in relation to food and agricultural policy domestically, as well as internationally. The U.S. government must stop prioritizing the interests of agribusiness over small farmers, abetting further corporatization of the food system here and in other countries. The U.S. must also endorse multilateral governance norms that will support India’s transition to climate-resilient, biodiverse and water-conserving food systems that reach all producers. This would also mean harmonizing trade rules to include parity pricing and public crop procurement.
We have great respect for the unified struggles the farmers and farmworkers of Samyukt Kisan Morcha have built, and we stand with them. We urge both governments to support independent family farmers and localized food systems, ensuring food sovereignty and securing the livelihoods of millions who are the bedrock of its food security and nutritional wellbeing.
(Statement signed by 87 organisations.)
(Article compiled by us based on newsreports by SabrangIndia, La Via Campesina and Rosamma Thomas.)
