Rukmini Rao

Protecting food sovereignity

Small and marginal farmers, both women and men, feed the majority of people in the developing world and supply food to the world markets. In spite of this, they continue to face hunger poverty and impoverishment. Farmers are being forced out of their lands everyday and the situation of agricultural workers continues to deteriorate.

We believe that this is because development agendas and processes are not set by farmers themselves and they do not receive a fair price for their produce. The citizens of Europe have shown great vision in protecting their own farmers and promoting safe and healthy foods. We expect Europe to be equally fair to farmers of developing countries and allow them to produce for themselves in a sustainable way. Low input non chemical agriculture has proved to be viable and economical and we look for support to sustainable agriculture in European Aid policies.

We hope a responsible Europe will ensure chemical-free agriculture throughout the world and promote farmer self-reliance in its Development Cooperation. Development cooperation should also ensure basic social security for farmers and agricultural workers. Concerned citizens of Europe have supported fair trade for generations and forged links with third world farmers. We look forward to a partnership which safeguards small farmers everywhere.

We call on Europe to respond to the interests of small farmers and agricultural workers world wide when you make farm policies to subsidize your own farmers to export which will ruin farmers elsewhere. We hope you will demand accountability from European Agri-corporations working elsewhere to ensure they do not undertake dangerous genetic engineering which will destroy existing rich biodiversity or chemically pollute land and water.

Rukmini Rao (Biography)