Recalling with pride the historic success achieved by the people’s movements at the Seattle and Cancun
Ministerial meetings of the WTO in 1999 and 2003 respectively;

Recognising that over the years the incidence of farmers’ suicides in India and other developing
countries has shown an alarming increase and the deepening and complex economic and social crisis in
the farming sector is largely a result of the approach underlying the AOA framework.

Acknowledging the significance of the emergence of the G-20 in the context of the Cancun Ministerial of the
WTO

Welcoming the forthcoming G-20 Ministerial Meeting at
New Delhi on March 18, 2005

We urge the G-20 Ministers to take note of our concerns and adopt a people’s agenda as elaborated
below for their deliberations and decisions.

We are convinced that the July framework agreement adopted in July 2004 

1)      maintains or expands the key mechanisms of
“domestic support” or subsidisation of EU and US
agriculture, the so-called Blue Box and Green Box; 
2)      creates a new restrictive category—that of
“sensitive products”—to hamper market access for
developing country products;
3)      makes only conditional commitments to eliminate
export subsidies;
4)      pays lip service to the developing countries’
demands for the designation of “special products” and
other forms of special and differential treatment and
5)      Extracts market opening commitments from developing
countries in agriculture as well as in NAMA (Non
Agricultural Market Access) and Services.

We believe that the WTOs Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) is predicated upon the preservation and
perpetuation of the domination of the agribusiness of the North. It was conceived and crafted in the
interest of temperate zone, large scale, capital intensive, trade oriented, agribusiness centered,
peasant insensitive and mass livelihood threatening agriculture.   

In India and as in most of the G-20 countries, agriculture is the main source of livelihood for
majority of the people. The process of integrating developing country agriculture with the world
agriculture market is already proving disastrous for poor and vulnerable peasantry. Thousands of farmers,
many of them among the world’s poorest people, have lost their livelihoods as a result of this process of
integration. The agrarian distress has reached serious proportions and the food security of billions of
people is endangered.  
The AOA paradigm visualises a kind of “final solution” to the agrarian question through the virtual
extinction of the 3 billion strong peasantry of the third world. The functioning of the AOA so far and the
manoeuvres witnessed during the pre and post Cancun period leave little doubt that the apparent moves by
the US and the EU accepting a measure of discipline on export subsidies and domestic support are only a
smokescreen to camouflage the prime objective of the so called global discipline on agriculture which is to
capture the markets of the third world and to render the third world countries totally dependent on
agribusiness of the North. This is being refurbished through the enforcement of the global discipline on
protection of Intellectual Property Rights whose scope now extends to seeds, plant varieties, micro
organisms, microbiological and non-biological processes of production of plants and animals. What is
worse, the smokescreen is being used as a lever to extract concessions from developing countries in NAMA
and the services areas of the negotiations.

This is unacceptable. It is time that peasants of the third world unite to expose this nefarious game. It is
time that they repudiate the AOA paradigm and compel their governments to explore afresh an agriculture
trade agreement derived from the basic objective of protecting and furthering the interests of their
peasantry and preserving the food sovereignty of their peoples. Such an agreement should be part of a wider
paradigm of economic cooperation among developing countries.  
 
We therefore demand that the G-20:

1)      Reject the July framework as the basis for
agricultural talks in the run-up to the December 2005
Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting for the reasons stated
earlier

2)      Call upon Brazil and India to leave the
non-inclusive grouping of the Five Interested Parties
(FIPs) and work towards the disbanding of the FIPs.
Instead they should work towards the consolidation of
G-20 and its close coordination with G-33 and G-90
with a view to evolving strategic solidarity of the
South as a whole in the WTO negotiations not only on
agriculture but also in NAMA and Services.

3)      Insist on the developing countries right to use
Quantitative Restrictions (QRs) to selectively de-link
their agrarian economies from the paradigm of AoA.
Such a right must be built into the AoA in the same
way as the right to use QRs was built into the GATT in
order to enable the developing countries to secure
their external financial position.

4)      Launch forthwith a collective exercise to fashion
an arrangement for promoting inter se agricultural
trade of developing countries. It should be informed
by the philosophy, approach and modalities of the
Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) among
developing countries. It should be derived from the
basic objective of protecting and furthering the
interests of their peasantry and preserving the food
sovereignty of their peoples. It should explicitly
take on board diverging tendencies and interests of
all developing countries.

5)      To be transparent in the negotiations and to take
elected representatives, agrarian communities, social
movements and other civil society groups into
confidence at all stages in the discussions.

For achieving our objectives as set out above, we resolve to work with like minded groups and movements
in the run-up to the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting of the WTO.

Endorsed by:

1)      Action Aid
2)      Agriculture Trade Initiative from the South, New
Delhi
3)      All India Agricultural Workers Union
4)      All India Bank Employees Association
5)      All India Kisan Sabha
6)      All India Peoples Science Network
7)      Centre for Organisation, Research and Education
(CORE), Manipur
8)      Centre for Study of Global Trade System and
Development, New Delhi
9)      Bharat Krishak Samaj, New Delhi
10)     Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, New Delhi
11)     Centre for Education and Communication, New Delhi
12)     Confederation of Central Government Employees and
Workers, New Delhi
13)     Democratic Youth  Federation of India
14)     Delhi Forum, New Delhi
15)     Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi
16)     Diverse Women for Diversity, New Delhi
17)     Economic Research Foundation, New Delhi
18)     Equations, Bangalore
19)     Farmers Relief Forum, Wayanad
20)     Focus on the Global South, Mumbai
21)     Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN),
Uttar Pradesh
22)     Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, New
Delhi
23)     Indian Drug Manufacturers Association
24)     Indian Social Institute, New Delhi
25)     Indigenous Perspectives, Manipur
26)     Inter cultural Resources, New Delhi
27)     Jharkand Krantikari Mazdoor Union, Bokaro,
Jharkhand 
28)     Housing and Land Rights Network - South Asia
Regional Programme, New Delhi
29)     Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi
30)     Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti, Mumbai
31)     Indian Farmers Movement, Kerala
32)     Jameen Jungle Pani Lokadhikar Andolan, Maharashtra

33)     Narmada Bachao Andolan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra
and Gujarat
34)     National Alliance of Peoples Movements
35)     National Conference of Dalit Organisations
36)     National Forum of Forest People and Forest
Workers, Maharashtra
37)     National Working Group on Patent Laws, New Delhi
38)     Navdhanya, New Delhi
39)     New Trade Union Initiative, New Delhi
40)     Research Foundation for Science, Technology and
Ecology, New Delhi
41)     Rozi Roti Haq Abhiyaan , Uttar Pradesh 
42)     Women’s Collective, Tamil Nadu
43)     Vikas Sahyog Prathisthan, Maharashtra 
44)     WTO Virodhi Bharatiya Jan Abhiyaan, New Delhi
45)     Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action, Mumbai

Supported from outside India by:

46)     Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), Philippines
47)     ATALC (Friends of the Earth Latin America &
Caribbean)
48)     The Oakland Institute, US
49)     REDES-Friends of the Earth, Uruguay