Afgelopen week werd MC-14, de 14e ministeriële conferentie van de WTO gehouden in Kameroen. Dit gebeurde vrijwel buiten de aandacht van de mainstream media, slechts BNR Nieuwsradio berichtte er op 28 maart en 30 maart over.
Analyse door Our World Is Not For Sale-netwerk
Binnen de conferentie waren ruim 50 maatschappelijke organisaties aanwezig die wereldwijd samenwerken binnen het Our World Is Not For Sale-netwerk. Hier is Platform Aarde Boer Consument sinds vorig jaar ook bij aangesloten.
Zij gaven verschillende persconferenties en brachten aan het einde binnen een gezamenlijk persbericht een analyse van de WTO-conferentie naar buiten. Hier enkele citaten over landbouw van mensen waarin we samenwerken binnen Landbouw-werkgroep binnen OWINFS.
- Ekane Nkwelle, Green Development Advocates (GDA), Cameroon:
“Africa and other LDCs cannot be asked to open their markets while their farmers compete against heavily subsidized systems. Sustainable development cannot be achieved without fairness and justice in global trade rules.” - Jonas Jaccard, Policy Officer, Humundi, Belgium:
“With MC14 ending in an indefinite postponement, the agricultural negotiations have once again come to nothing, as has been the case since 2015. Developed and agro-exporting countries (Cairns group) refuse to honor the commitments they made in the past to support food security in developing countries. Worse still, they now want to wipe out the past mandates and move toward “new approaches,” which are increasingly harmful to farmers and countries in the Global South. They couldn’t care less if multilateralism goes down the drain, because their ambitions are solely driven by the interests of the agribusiness sector. In so doing, they are ruining what little credibility the WTO and the multilateral system still have. Fortunately, alternatives to the agricultural trade system are taking shape to envision a future outside the WTO; probably all that remains is to pin our hopes on these alternatives to foresee a future where farmers earn a decent living and where the transition to sustainable food systems is set in motion.”
- K V Biju, Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, India: “I am speaking to you from a farmers’ organization in India with 5 million Members. We have been cheated again by the WTO in Yaounde. A permanent solution on public stockholding is our lifeline but again it has been denied to us. Nor do we have the special safeguard mechanism. We are very angry that the US has pushed for its neoliberal “new approach” agenda and does not want to deliver on past mandates. Brazil, in spite of being a developing country, along with the Cairns Group plans to unleash an aggressive liberalisation agenda, and is misusing “sustainability” and “food security” to buy it. This is a direct attack on our markets, our subsidies, our livelihoods. We are happy that there is no damaging outcome on agriculture from MC14 and we will continue to fight for our rights and oppose these neo-liberal powers.”
La Via Campesina: Presentatie alternatieve multilaterale handelsregels
Buiten de conferentie maakte de internationale boerenbeweging La Via Campesina van de gelegenheid om samen te komen met boeren uit de hele wereld. Zij blijven buiten de onderhandleingen omdat zij geen hervorming van de WTO willen, maar een einde aan de WTO-regels binnen de landbouw.
Op 29 maart riepen zij hiertoe op via een persbericht, en stelden tegelijkertijd alternatieve multilaterale handelsregels, waar over onderhandeld zou moeten worden binnen de volgende VN-organisaties: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), en the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
In kort zien de voorstellen er zo uit: https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/EN-Presentation_Framework-web-version.pdf
De specifieke voorstellen genaamd ‘International Framework for Agricultural Trade Based on Food Sovereignty’: https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/16.03.26_EN_International-Trade-framework-La-Via-Campesina.pdf
Ook bracht men de Yaoundé-verklaring naar buiten, waarin naast de landbouw ook specifiek werd ingegaan op de nadelen van de WTO-regels voor de kleinschalige visserij.