Correspondence Reports:
Anti-peasant Hybrid Commercialization Program assailed

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid ng Pilipinas-Cagayan Valley (PKMP) strongly assailed the Hybrid Commercialization Program (HCP), the new scheme of the Department of Agriculture (DA), as a program utterly meant to deceive the peasants. The DA has been pushing this program to propagate hybrid plant varieties among the peasants. The varieties are mainly genetically modified �suicide� or �terminator� seeds that cannot produce fertile seeds for the next planting season.

The imperialist companies pushing this program aim to eradicate traditional varieties and replace them with these �terminator� seeds that require expensive fertilizers and pesticides produced by these same companies.

The DA took advantage of the devastation of peasants� crops by successive typhoons to hasten the propagation of these hybrid seeds. The DA has been making the pitch that peasants can acquire these seeds from seven corn hybrid products of Monsanto, Syngenta and other international agribusiness companies at very low prices.

Under the auspices of the imperialist policy of �globalization,� gigantic international agribusiness companies are

To safeguard the imperialist agribusiness companies� monopoly over biotechnology, they ensure that the country enacts appropriate laws, in collusion with the puppet government. One such law is RA 9168 (Plant Variety Protection Act), which grants foreign agribusiness corporations exclusive rights to seeds and other products they claim to have discovered. This places at a disadvantage peasants, indigenous people, local scientists and inventors who have nurtured, enriched and developed local seeds adapted to the country�s conditions.

Through such pro-imperialist agricultural laws and programs under the Arroyo regime, peasants are condemned to become even more dependent on seeds and products developed by imperialist companies. Peasants are likewise denied the right to regenerate and sell the seeds that they have cultivated and developed.

According to the PKMP-CV, the current influx of new seeds is reminiscent of the Masagana 99 and Maisagana experience during the Marcos dictatorship. These programs forced peasants to use imported high yielding variety seeds and huge amounts of the corresponding production inputs. With the large volume and exorbitant cost of new seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and other inputs, peasants were saddled with debts more than ever. These previous programs likewise destroyed native seed varieties that were more resistant to diseases and pests and were more suited to the country�s soil and climate. But actually, what the HCP is doing is far worse than that.

The PKMP also related a similar experience in Mexico. With Mexico�s inclusion in the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA) in 1994, the US forced the country to become a dumping ground for new corn hybrids. Mexico was also forced to sign an agreement on Plant Variety Protection. Although corn is Mexico�s principal product, at present, one-third of the corn consumed in Mexico is imported from the US. The price of local corn has already fallen by 70%, but Mexicans still cannot compete with the cheap US corn imports. The incomes of 15 million Mexicans who depend on corn have drastically shrunk.

The puppet regimes from Ramos up to Arroyo which have upheld imperialist �globalization� have merely condemned the Philippines to be at the suffering end of GATT and WTO strictures and other pro-imperialist agreements in agriculture and trade. Instead of upholding the interests of the country�s peasantry, they have only further opened the country�s local market, trade and agriculture to the imperialist agribusiness companies� unrestrained intervention and domination. The country�s markets have been flooded with imported agricultural products and inputs. The imperialist agribusiness companies have been given complete control over agricultural technology. This is now leading to the wanton destruction of the country�s agricultural and food security, selfreliance and development.

In reality, not only peasants but the entire Filipino people are the victims of the Hybrid Commercialization Program.

Let us oppose imperialist intervention in the country�s agriculture and the puppet government�s collusion with them. Let us promote an agriculture that scientifically promotes and develops appropriate local know-how and technology, ensures the country�s agricultural, food and overall economic security and self-reliance, and upholds the country�s interests and not those of the imperialists and their minions.

21 November 2003
English Edition

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