IMPACT ON FARMERS

Whatever opportunities may have come to workers in the export sectors of various countries, the vast majority of people in the developing world live in rural communities and are dependent on farming for their livelihoods. It is here that globalisation will have the greatest impact in terms of the number of people it affects.

Some farmers have benefited from the export opportunities which globalisation offers. Kenyan farmers have found a niche market in the European demand for year-round vegetables. African and Latin American producers who supply fair trade outfits such as Cafdirect, Oxfam or Traidcraft have managed to secure a stable source of income in return for their crops.

Yet many more farmers have seen their livelihoods threatened through exposure to global markets. Coffee grown without fair trade protection is a good example of this threat. The price which farmers around the world receive for their coffee crop is largely dependent on conditions in Brazil, which produces around a quarter of the world's supply. When frost hit the Brazilian crop in 1994, the world coffee price rose. When Brazil floated its currency in 1999, the world coffee price fell.

Fluctuations in the Brazilian climate and economy are outside the control of coffee producers in Africa. Yet their integration into the global market means they have become entirely vulnerable to such events. With the international market price of coffee in long-term decline, farmers who have converted from subsistence farming to coffee production are increasingly unable to feed their families. Many have had to abandon farming and look for casual work in the cities instead.

Farmers also suffer when their own markets are opened up to competition from the powerful agricultural industries of the developed world. In 1994 Mexico opened its markets to competition from US agriculture under the requirements of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and within just three years 800,000 Mexican farmers faced bankruptcy as a result of direct competition from the industrial agriculture of the US Mid-west.

Similarly, cattle farmers from Burkina Faso to South Africa have been forced out of business as a result of cheaply produced (and heavily subsidised) meat from the European Union being dumped on African markets.

Other pro-globalisation agents have also favoured multinational agricultural companies over the small farmers of the developing world. Within a day of the US Democratic Party receiving a $500,000 'donation' from banana multinational Chiquita, the Clinton government filed a complaint at the WTO against European trade agreements which favour bananas imported from small farmers in the Caribbean.

The WTO's disputes settlement body ruled in favour of the multinational, demanding that it should have greater access to the lucrative European market. Up to 200,000 Caribbean farmers, many of them women, may lose their livelihoods as a result of the ruling.