Development aggression Mainstream Development Issues

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP 117 ment, and decreased self-sufficiency in food and other basic needs, have compelled many indi- viduals to sell their labor power, talents, or the products of their craftsmanship – some season- ally, others perennially. Agricultural modernization programs, such as those that have sprung from the World Bank-supported Green Revolution of the 1970s and from the ongoing “gene revolution”, are encouraging entire communities to forsake their traditions of highly diversified, low-external input subsistence production in favor of high-external input and market-oriented monocultures. The negative consequences of the integration of indigenous peoples in the market economy may be outlined as follows.

a. Loss of both food sovereignty and subsistence security

Indigenous communities become de- pendent on the market. It is no longer their own food needs but market demand that determines the nature of their agricultur- al products. To take optimal advantage of the demand for a certain product, they will likely cultivate only this product – in other words, monocrop. But the demand and supply situation in the market may change, and this may bring about a sudden shift in the prices of products. If producers are un- able to adapt quickly, they may not be able to earn enough money for buying even their most basic subsistence needs.

b. Vulnerability to exploitation

Shifts in the price, demand and supply situation in the market are often due entirely to ma- nipulations by local merchants or global powers, rather than actual changes in the needs or tastes of consumers. Whether the manipulators are local or global forces, it is usually difficult, often impossible, for indigenous peasants to effectively reckon with their power. In the Philippines, for example, merchant cartels have enjoyed control of rice and vegetable supply and prices for decades. They are able to manipulate both produce supply and prices because they also wield control of credit financing for production. Peasants must sell their pro- duce to the merchants at any price the latter dictate because this is stipulated in the terms of their credit contracts. As creditors, the merchants already make huge gains either from charging interest at usurious rates, or from retaining substantial shares of the harvest or the cash income from its sale. As traders, the merchants make additional gains from underpricing the produce. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, local merchants in many developing countries found their prospects for continued accumulation of wealth threatened by market globalization – which allowed the European Union, the United States, China, Australia and other large economies to dump their surplus produce all over the world, driving down domestic prices. But the local mer- chants were able to cope simply by squeezing the local peasants. The impact on the indigenous peasantry in some countries has been more devastating than in others. In many places, the indigenous peasants have had to surrender ownership of pre- Module-6 One of the hundreds of so-called “temporary” army camps in the Chitagong Hill Tracts Rangamai District, strategically located near a village and the road. Photo by Chris Erni