By: Jim Goodman, organic dairy farmer, Wonewoc, WI
Food is an important part of most Holiday celebrations, not just because
we need food to live, but, food connects us to our culture, our past and
whether we know it or not, our future. Food Is Different: Why the WTO
Should Get Out of Agriculture, a great book by Peter Rosset a book
everyone who cares about food should read. The book is dedicated to Lee
Kyung Hae, the Korean farmer who took his life in protest against the
World Trade Organization (WTO) on September 16, 2003 at the WTO protest
march in Cancun Mexico.
He took his own life just a few yards from where we stood amongst the
other protesters near the barricades. I stepped aside as they carried
him past me on a stretcher, but I had no idea what had happened until I
heard later that night that he had died in protest.
Many people have and will continue to discredit his act, write him off
as a crazy or some sort of fool. While I didn't know him personally, I
have spent time with peasant farmers like Lee Kyung Hae and the one
thing I have learned from them; farming is about much more than making
money, it is life. They are ready to do anything, to protect their
farms, their families, their way of life.
Most farmers I know, myself included, have a strong attachment to our
farms, the land, our heritage, but it is a life or death attachment for
very few of us. These peasant farmers are different, they have the
passion, they will die for what they believe.
Those who would write Lee Kyung Hae off do not understand the
commitment, the connection, the interdependence these farmers have with
each other and their communities. Back in the 60's during Vietnam, we
occasionally heard about a US soldier who threw himself on a live hand
grenade to save the lives of his comrades, his brothers; it's like that.
Peasant farmers have told me stories of those who stood in front of
bulldozers in their attempt to stop Plan Puebla-Panama, the giant
transportation project linking Central and South America to the North,
another part of the corporate effort to extract the wealth of the South.
These peasant farmers are willing to sacrifice their lives for what they
feel is the greater good. Perhaps there is no thought given to a
spontaneous act of sacrifice, perhaps there is, I don't know. I do know
that in order for a human to overcome the strongest instinct we have,
self preservation, there needs to be an extremely urgent life altering
issue at stake.
Food, ones farm, ones heritage, ones family, these are the issues Lee
Kyung Hae gave his life for. He, like all the peasant farmers in Cancun,
was determined that the WTO, would not sell out Korea's farms, it's
families and their right to produce food to a parasitic group of
multinational corporations intent only on making a profit. They knew if
the trade provisions of the WTO were enacted they would loose their
right to feed themselves and their families, their right to grow the
food their ancestors had grown; the food that maintained their heritage
as well as their lives.
One might ask, what is so special about food? Why is it different than
other commodities? The cheapest food is the best food right? Rosset
makes it clear that food is “ not a typical commodity because it affects
so many people and the environment in such intimate ways”. “Food is both
personal, as it affects our bodies, and political as it affects the
world”. Food does have political power, and as we have seen in the
current world food crisis, it has real economic power as well.
Unlike most commodities, we need food every day. Some may want a big
screen TV, but they do not need it, they can live without it, but they
can't live without food, Food is Different.
We were shocked by the death of a Wal-Mart worker trampled by crazed
Christmas shoppers, but if food supplies become short, everyone will
become crazed. Eating is part of that basic survival instinct, we will
do what we must to survive. A new TV or a car, we might want them, but
few would kill for them. Food is Different.
Lee Kyung Hae's sacrifice was a very visible and selfless act, yet every
day peasant farmers around the world are forced to give up something,
their land, their rights their ability to feed themselves, their food
sovereignty.
How could we have let our world slip so far? Why must people die for
their right to feed themselves? At what point did the profits of
multinational corporations become more important than the lives of
farmers? We must get agriculture out of the WTO.
Food is different, we need to understand that people are willing to die
for their right to farm, to grow what they want, to feed their families
and communities. While few are inclined to make the ultimate sacrifice,
we need to think about how important food really is. It is life and
death. Good food, local food, food that supports the farmer, nourishes
the eater and supports the community, that is what Lee Kyung Hae died for.
