What Remains At Stake For Food and Agricultural Workers: After Cancun

By IUF

The failure of the Cancun trade talks to resolve internal conflicts between member states over food and agriculture exposes the global inequalities entrenched in the WTO regime both between and within member states.

The issues in the IUF publication The WTO and the World Food System were to the fore at the recent WTO Cancun Summit. The need for a unified union approach remains urgent.

Neither market access nor negotiated flexibility will rectify the fundamental inequalities in the WTO regime. Global inequalities in turn undermine the capacity of small farmers and agricultural workers to overcome local inequalities, exacerbating those conditions that prevent the realisation of decent work in agriculture.

(Asian Food Worker supplement to vol. 33, no. 3, July-October, 2003)