WTO showdown in Sacto
Closed-door conference will push U.S. vision of agribusiness, and that's exactly what troubles protesters.

By Ron Curran

FROM JUNE 23 to 25, ministers of trade, agriculture, and health from more than 100 countries will gather at the Sacramento Convention Center for the first-ever international Ministerial Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science and Technology.

Much will be at stake, both for the assembled policy makers – whose decisions could affect the health of generations and the expenditure of trillions of dollars – and for the many protesters who are expected to converge on the city for the first World Trade Organization-related meeting in North America since 1999's confrontational Seattle conference. (That event resulted in hundreds of protester arrests, clashes in which police used tear gas and rubber bullets, and ultimately a curfew that shut down the city.)

The stated purpose of the three-day event is "to support the United States' commitment to global food security" or, as U.S. (and former California) secretary of agriculture Ann M. Veneman said when announcing the event last June, "to focus on the needs of developing countries in adopting new food and agricultural technologies."

Sounds noble. But it's more complicated, and some of its potential ramifications are downright scary, from approving widespread use of irradiated foods to promoting genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Outside the convention center, protesters both local and from around the country who answer calls to action e-mailed by leading activist groups will converge to oppose ministerial recommendations they believe are certain to be approved on behalf of corporations seeking support for irradiation and GMO programs during the invitation-only, high-security meetings.

Their primary concern: the event will rubber-stamp those flawed and expensive United States-boosted biotech and agribusiness farming policies and the trillions of dollars in annual subsidies that support them – while ignoring proven sustainable agriculture options employed by small farmers.

The only thing the two sides agree on is that the meeting is of pivotal importance.

"This is historic, something we've never done," said Christian Foster, conference coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is sponsoring the event with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department at a cost of $3 million. "We're committed to eliminating famine and helping everyone lead healthier lives thanks to these new technologies."

But Raj Patel, policy director for nonprofit group Food First, insists the conference's potential benefits are undermined by a predetermined outcome.

"The sponsors' motives are transparent," Patel said, noting that the conference coincides with a Bush administration lawsuit against the city of Brussels and the European Union for refusing to import American-grown bio-crops "because of unfounded, unscientific fears."

Patel pointed to the fact that the conference's featured speakers include invited reps from BASF, Cargill Dow, Coca-Cola, Dow AgroSciences, Kraft, Monsanto (for whom Veneman previously worked as an attorney), SureBeam, and the World Bank. Among those shut out are world-renowned agricultural experts from right down the road at UC Davis.

"This meeting is corporation-driven," Patel said. "There's no democracy allowed; no one can present alternative views. Only agribusiness interests are acceptable. Meanwhile, people on the streets of Sacramento are hungry. That's both the irony of, and the evidence against, this ministerial. The U.S. is pushing a model on the world that doesn't even work here at home. We pay $1.3 trillion a year in agribusiness subsidies, but 35 million households are still food-insecure."

Heidi McLean of the Sacramento Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture agrees.

"This will be a nonviolent, educational three days," she said, "but we'll get the message out that this is a U.S.-sponsored summit, that the subsidies the government promises don't reach the farmer, and that the rest of the world's skepticism about American policy says a lot."

Groups such as the Oakland-based Ruckus Society and San Francisco-based Direct Action to Stop the War are planning acts of civil disobedience, but Sacramento police have spent the last year working with more than a dozen law enforcement agencies to keep a lid on the protests.

"We always plan for a worst-case scenario, and we have seen some new faces in town already," Sacramento Police Department sergeant Justin Risley said. "But we hope that if people choose to protest, they do so within the law. If not, they face severe consequences."

For more information or to get involved, go to www.sacmobilization.org.