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Kathmandu Friday July 13, 2001 Ashadh 29, 2058.
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Meet on farmers' right to livelihood
kicks off
KATHMANDU, July 12 – In what
can be called as the first step towards making strategic and
concurrent interventions that will contribute to securing farmers’
rights to livelihoods in the Hindukush Himalayan region, a two-day
launch meeting of the five-year "Regional Program on Farmers’
Rights to Livelihood" kicked off here today.
Participated in by over 25
representatives from seven countries including India, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Pakistan, Uganda, Zambia and Nepal, the meeting was jointly
organized by South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE)
and International Centre for Integrate Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
The major objective of the meeting was
to develop a plan of action for the implementation of the five-year
long program that would cover eight countries of the Asia-Pacific
region, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan,
Bangladesh, China and Myanmar.
In addition to familiarize the
philosophy behind the initiation of the ambitious project, the meeting
also aimed to facilitate the understanding of the intricate
relationship between trade liberalization and rights of mountain
farmers, the underlying idea with which the five-year program has been
formulated.
The program is an effort to prevent
further marginalization of mountain farmers, whose resources are
coming under direct threat of the different agreements of the global
trade regime. The focus was, however, on the controversial agreement
on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs agreement) and
its patenting system.
The controversial TRIPS agreement,
contradicting the provisions of the Convention on Biological
Diversity, 1992, among others, allows exclusive rights over life forms
either through patents or through an effective sui generis system.
Experts gathered at the meeting expressed concern that the WTO
agreement, especially the TRIPs agreement, would have severe impact on
the rights of farmers in the developing and the Least Developed
Countries (LDCs).
Dr Ghayur Alam, Director at the Centre
for Technology Studies, India, said that the patenting provisions
under the TRIPs agreement would have serious implications on
farmers’ rights. However, he said, "Though the issue of
farmers’ rights has evoked intense debate, there is still a serious
shortage of empirical information on the subject."
On the same occasion, Ruchi Tripathi,
Food Program Officer at Action Aid, London stressed that the TRIPs
agreement should be more balanced. Her statement comes at a time when
the TRIPs council, Geneva, is reviewing the TRIPs agreement. "The
agreement is tilted in favor of the private international companies.
It should be more balanced to meet both private interest and public
welfare," Ruchi said.
Ratnakar Adhikari, General Secretary at
SAWTEE, highlighted the major objectives of the five-year program. He
said that the focus of the project was to establish a preliminary
database on products of bio-diversity, in addition to indigenous
medicines, crafts, arts and knowledge that need protection against
illegal patents.
He also informed that the goal was to
assess the impact of international, national and sub national
legislation and covenants on customary and traditional regimes in
mountain areas of the Hindukush region, where over 160 million poor
and backward people live.
On the same occasion, Henry Richard
Kimera, Executive Director at Consumer Protection Association, Uganda,
Dr D Dhanapal, Principal Scientist at MS Swaninathan Foundation,
India, Mwamba Makasa, Coordinator at CUTS-Africa Resource Centre,
Zambia, Shafqat Munir, President of Journalists for Democracy and
Human Rights, Pakistan, and Dhrubesh Regmi, Treasurer at SAWTEE,
Nepal, shared their respective country experiences.
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