April 14, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1428

ISLAMABAD, April 13: The Sustainable Agriculture Action Group (SAAG) — a network for consumer society organisations for sustainable and rights-based agriculture in Pakistan — will hold a convention next week to resist anti-farmer policies of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The convention, titled "Peasant's Resistance Convention on WTO” will be held in Lahore from April 16-18 as a parallel event to the WTO-Cairns Group ministerial meeting.

The objective of the convention is to resist anti-farmer policies of the WTO and to assert that civil society has many apprehensions regarding Pakistan’s position in WTO negotiations on agriculture, which ignore protection to peasants and the small farmers in the country.

The two-day convention will include inputs from a wide range of resource persons and social movement experts who will speak on the issues related to WTO agreement on agriculture.

Rich countries are not ready to offer a level-playing field, thus not fair to free trade. They wish to have no tariff barriers in other countries so that they can trade efficiently but at the same time they protect their industry and agriculture through giving huge subsidies and putting numerous tariff and non-tariff barriers to block other countries’ products.

In rich countries, the corporate sector guides their positions in the WTO, who wants developing countries to become just a consumer market.

The poor member countries have experienced so far that the WTO limits role of the public sector to take necessary measures to protect people and ensure better services.

Agriculture is the central sector to economies of many poor member countries. Therefore, in the on-going Doha Round negotiations, these countries are resisting further liberalisation without getting tangible market access in developed countries.