The Hindu Business Line : Agriculture should not be a part of WTO: French activist

MR Jose Bove's nickname is Asterix. His droopy moustache and easy demeanour are uncannily similar to the indomitable Gaul of the famous French comic series.

However, more than the resemblance it is his admitted mission to repel alien invaders in the form of foreign capitalists that has earned him the name and fame. "Each country should protect its farmers who produce basic food for their own people," Mr Bove told Business Line on the sidelines of a conference on food security at the World Social Forum 2004.

Mr Bove, who spent six months in prison in 1998 for destroying a half-built McDonald's stall in his native Millau to protest beef imports from the US, said, "Only less than 10 per cent of the world's farm produce most of it non-essential products like cocoa and coffee is sold from one country to another. The people themselves consume the rest. The WTO, backed by transnational corporations, proposes to impose its rules on all agriculture produce."

The pipe-smoking French activist, who breeds sheep and makes the famous Roquefort cheese, says that agriculture should never be a part of WTO.

"Food sovereignty should ensure that farmers can produce for their own people's consumption and not for transnational corporations. The WTO's industrial agriculture policy ties the hands of nations that want to help their farmers," he said.

Mr Bove said there are only 3 crore farmers in the world who own a tractor. About 25 crore farmers work with animals and more than a billion work with their hands.

"Governments should support these farmers, largely from Asian countries, who work with their hands to prevent them being disposed of their land and meagre resources.

To a question whether he is opposed to Indian exports such as wine to France and the European policy of subsidising its farmers, Mr Bove said, "I am not defending European farm policies. And I do not mind imports from other countries of non-essential items such as wine. It is import of basic produce such as milk, meat and cereals that I am opposed to."

He added that in many countries such as the US, farm subsidies are in reality export subsidies.