NFU launches campaign to scrap Canada-EU trade agreement

With the fifth round of negotiations set to start Oct. 18-22 in Ottawa, the National Farmers Union launched a campaign to scrap the proposed Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.If the mega-deal with the EU is ratified in mid 2011 as projected, NFU president Terry Boehm said CETA would threaten the democratic rights of Canadian farmers and citizens.Canadians are largely unaware of the agreement and what is being bargained away to the demands of the EU, he said.In the NFU’s Saskatoon office, Boehm flips through a thick draft copy of a secret text recently obtained. He points out CETA could virtually eliminate the practice of farmers saving, reusing, exchanging and selling seed from their crops.”Using farm saved seed could cost you and your farm. The farmer’s land, equipment, and crops can be seized for an alleged infringement of intellectual property rights attached to plant varieties owned by global seed corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta,” he said.Boehm wants to raise the alarm over the inability of all branches of government to favour locally procured goods and services.”At the municipal, or even the provincial level, the ability for government to act autonomously in the interest of their local citizens is completely eroded by this agreement,” he said.Boehm said product and food safety will be at risk as Canadian standards cannot exceed international technical standards. Imported products and food cannot be inspected until after a problem has occurred.Canada must accept any of the European Union’s 27 member countries’ certificates. If one province or territory accepts an EU product, all provinces and territories are banned from refusing the product.If signed, Boehm thinks that Canadian farmers’ fate will be sealed with more losses delivered under CETA.Canada’s farmers have tripled exports, but farm debt has tripled as well, reaching $64 billion. Realized net farm income from the markets has been negative since 2002.”Canada has very little to gain in the agreement as European Union tariffs average only two percent,” he said.

Your reading list