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Developed countries creating unfair competition - OPPAZ

Developed countries creating unfair competition - OPPAZ
By Fridah Zinyama
Wednesday October 17, 2007 [04:00]

The Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ) has said competition is severely constrained between producers in industrialised countries and those in the developing world. In a joint statement on the World Food Day 2007 whose theme was the ‘Right to Food’, OPPAZ and the International Forum of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM) stated that developed countries dumped their agricultural surpluses in developing countries thus creating unfair competition.

“When sold on the world market at less than the cost of production, these surpluses depress local prices, thereby lowering production and people’s direct access to food, although they may officially have a ‘Right to food’ in their own countries,” they stated.

The two organisations stated that with such practices it would be difficult to ensure that developing countries produced enough food to meet their demands.

“The right to food is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life,” they stated.

They added that it was the right to feed oneself in dignity and produce healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically, socially and economically sound methods, defining one’s own food systems that was important rather than the right to be fed.

“This counts for each and every individual, as well as for communities and regions,” they stated.

And OPPAZ and IFOAM also stated that the ‘Right to Food’ also meant that life could not be patented.

“Patents on life support, the monopoly control of genetic resources by few, thereby extensively undermining people’s rights and access to food,” stated the two organisations.

Labels: OPPAZ, ORGANICS

posted by MrK @ 3:49 AM