Support our farmers or let them commit suicide. Remember martyr Lee Kyung-Hae

-Pannaga Prasad

Lee Kyung-Hae was a quiet kind boy born to wealthy parents in 1947 in united Korea. He graduated in agricultural science and decided to take up farming on the hilly slopes of South Korea where he now belonged, though his parents wanted him to take up a more glamorous job like the government service. Toiling day and night he built a 30 acre farm which boasted of colourful different varieties of fruits and vegetables, lush green paddy and many cows. His farm became a symbol of agricultural prosperity because the hilly slopes were no fertile river plain and it required great planning, knowledge and effort to grow diverse crops. So famous did his farm become, that agricultural students and scientists from across Korea regularly visited it to learn and understand the secrets behind his farming brilliance.

Farmers, students and civil society groups paying homage to Lee Kyung-Hae at the Bali WTO. (Photo: Benny Kuruvilla)

Lee Kyung-Hae travelled far and wide, educating farmers about traditional farming techniques which were also high yielding and preserved the environment. He was elected to a number of prominent agricultural societies and in 1989, Lee was awarded the “Farmer of the Year” by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. This is where things get more interesting. South Korea by this time was a major export oriented economy, manufacturing hi tech electronic goods and sending them to the industrialized economies, USA, Australia and the European countries. To maintain balance of trade, these countries wanted South Korea to import some of their products, and what was the West manufacturing cheaply? Food. Rice, wheat, maize, corn and dairy products. The West already had big companies like ConAgra, Cargill and Monsanto who by their sheer scale of operation and with cushioned with generous subsidies from their governments, could sell food products at rock bottom prices on the international market. Well, the rich countries always have their way. So South Korea opened its borders to cheap food imports and the big companies made their way into the average Korean kitchen. The Pandora’s Box of Free Trade had just been opened.

Remembering farmers' martyr, South Korean Lee Kyung-Hae. (Photo: Benny Kuruvilla)

The executives who ran these corporations were taught in their business schools that they had to exponentially increase sales, seek new markets, reduce costs and of course make more than 100% profit. The opportunities presented by developing countries, with their large populations, cheap labour and weak environmental regulations were almost too good to be true. And so the World Trade Organziation, being funded by these very companies arm-twisted poor countries to undertake liberalization of their economies.

Lee Kyung-Hae was deeply disturbed by this development. More than 60% of his countrymen were small farmers who could not compete with the flood of cheap foreign food. Let alone make a profit, the poor farmers could not even recover their cost of production. Their government’s bias towards foreign investment saw more big companies entering their markets, pushing the local farmers further into debt. Fertile agricultural land was being sold to factories to build ever more consumer products that the rich wanted. 4 lane and 6 lane highways, luxury apartments were being built. His village which once had a vibrant happy population was now being deserted as more families, now landless and deep in debt, migrated to the cities to work as drivers, watchmen and construction workers. Lee saw all this devastation unfolding before his very eyes and the blood in him boiled.

Paying homage to martyr Lee Kyung-Hae. (Photo: Benny Kuruvilla)

Lee held a number of hunger strikes, even lasting 26 days. In 1993, when there was no internet, he organized more than 15,000 small farmers from across the world to protest in Geneva, Switzerland, where the WTO’s meeting was being held. But the big companies used police force and threw them out and instead promised the local governments of more jobs and more money. The local governments, fooled by the carrot of development, allowed further foreign imports, which effectively murdered many more farmers.

The WTO’s next high level meeting was held in Cancun in Mexico in 2003. Lee Kyung-Hae led another large army of small farmers and peasants who were still fighting for their right to grow food. But their protest was ignored in totality by mainstream media. On September 10^th 2003, when the protest reached the final barricade which separated the rich from the poor, he stood atop the barricade and plunged a knife into his heart and died. On the other side of the barricade, the big companies and governments continued to discuss new free trade deals.

WTO kills farmers. It really kills. Remember martyr Lee Kyung-Hae. (Photo: Benny Kuruvilla)

If it was Lee Kyung-Hae in Korea, it was Vittal Arabhavi in Karnataka who committed suicide over the low price of sugarcane, because we are now importing cheap sugar. India is a much bigger, poorer and hungrier country. We cannot trade away the lives of our farmers. Agriculture is not just their profession. It is their culture, their life. If a woman is raped every one hour in India, a farmer commits suicide every half an hour because of the cycle of debt caused by free trade. 

The WTO is all over the news now, except that the media talks only in favour of the big companies who sponsor them. Talk about the negative aspects. Share it on social media. If your company trades with other countries, make sure you are not sacrificing any livelihoods. We are Indians first and not corporate employees.