By Prensa Latina
Hanoi : The World Bank’s agricultural development proposal for poor countries worsens the crisis of small farmers, ActionAid organization warned Tuesday in Vietnam.
Representatives of that organization, which fights poverty worldwide, and activists from other countries, are taking part in a one-day seminar in Hanoi to warn of risks posed by the WB approach.
The WB launched its 2008 World Development Report on October 19 in Washington, and its office in Vietnam plans to present it today in the capital.
ActionAid warns that in the last 25 years, the Bank’s lending policies have made public sectors in Third World countries withdraw support from agriculture, leaving farmers at the expense of neoliberal measures.
To grant its loans, the bank urges governments to cut subsidies for agricultural supplies, eliminate agricultural market commissions, and tax laws to benefit large corporations.
According to ActionAid representative in Vietnam Phan Van Ngoc, the prescribed ó high value market agriculture ó has failed to boost national agricultural development.
ó The WB promotes the idea of healthy competition, but actually, agro-industrial monopolies alter prices at the expense of the poor, ó Ngoc denounced.