GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

What's new in English | Qué hay de nuevo en español
Les mises à jour en français

An agenda for domination - Latin America’s FTAs with the European Union

August 2008

The European Union is promoting "association agreements" or "cooperation agreements" with Latin American countries. These agreements appear weaker and more flexible than the equivalent agreements that the USA is signing with countries in the region. But behind this affable facade the EU is tough: it is insisting that the countries agree to extend periodically what has been agreed and to undertake an undefined number of legal, administrative, economic, technical and social reforms, the objective of which is to grant European countries ever more favourable conditions in all aspects of national life.

This amounts to a new Conquest (as the 1492 European "discovery" of the Americas is often referred to). It will lead to transantional corporations taking control over communications, water, the banking system, oil, biodiversity, all kinds of raw materials and fishing, as well as being able to use Latin American countries as bases for exports. Eventually European companies will take the place of state companies and be responsible for establishing norms, certification and patents. Tariff barriers, taxes, phytosanitary standards, quality controls and any other regulation seen as a barrier to the expansion of European companies and their trade will be swept away.

If these agreements are negotiated in secret and their implementation becomes the responsibility of the executive branch of government, civil society and the parliaments of the countries involved will not be allowed to protest or to investigate properly what is going on.

It is hoped that this briefing will promote discussion about what is happening and help Latin American society to stand up to the new European invasion.

Now also available in PDF format:

Click here to go to the publication

Seedling July 2008

June 2008

In this issue of Seedling we have three articles on the current food crisis, including an article by Vandana Shiva. Seedling interviews Tim Lang, professor of Food Policy at City University in the UK and Patrice Sagbo writes on the impact of bird flu in Benin. Along with a number of smaller articles and a film review, read Seedling online here:

http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=73

Food safety - rigging the game

June 2008

As the push toward neoliberalism advances, and quantitative measures to protect local markets, such as tariffs and quotas, disappear, industrial powers are turning to qualitative measures such as food safety regulations to further skew trade in their favour. In the food safety arena, both the US and the EU are pressing their standards on other countries. For Washington, even though its own food safety system is widely criticised as too lax, this means getting countries to accept GMOs and US meat safety inspections. For Brussels, whose food safety standards have a much better reputation, it means imposing high standards on countries that cannot meet them. Bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have become a tool of choice to push through the changes.

Click here to go to the publication

Making a killing from the food crisis

April 2008

The world food crisis is hurting a lot of people, but global agribusiness firms, traders and speculators are raking in huge profits. The fundamental cause of today's food crisis is neoliberal globalisation itself, which has transformed food from a source of livelihood security into a mere commodity to be gambled away, even at the cost of widespread hunger among the world’s poorest people.

Click here to go to the publication