Most, though not all, are paid agricultural workers because they do not own or rent the land on which they work nor the tools and equipment they use. In these respects they are a group distinct from farmers.

They are part of the 450 million agricultural workers in paid employment who make up approximately 40 percent of the world’s agricultural labour force. The share of paid employment in agriculture, including the number of wage-dependent smallholders in agriculture, is continuing to increase in general and is critical to employment and income in rural areas. In many countries both within and outside the OECD these workers are amongst the poorest of the poor and it remains a tragic irony that those who feed the world are often so poor that they cannot feed themselves. 

The IUF also represents food industry workers who turn the raw agricultural produce into industrial and consumer products in the form of processed foods. The food industry presents many facets, from the traditional labour-intensive activities often found in developing countries to the capital-intensive, high value-added processes more common in the industrialized world. 

Finally the third part of our global membership are amongst the millions of workers in the hotel, restaurant and tourism sectors who then prepare and serve the agricultural and processed food products to consumers.

The international trade union movement, of which TUAC and the IUF are part, therefore approaches the issue of sustainable and secure food production from a unique position, crossing as we do several relevant sectors and representing a worker constituency that is at the same time a rural, an industrialized and a consumer constituency.

The IUF has a historical and statutory commitment "to actively promote the organization of the world's food resources for the common good of the population as a whole." The IUF rules spell this commitment out in precisely these words. This translates as an absolute mandate to work as effectively and as pragmatically as possible to ensure an adequate supply of safe, accessible and affordable food for all and to do so in common with any and all who share our aims and our principles. 

In this struggle for sustainable and secure agricultural and food production paid agricultural and food workers are a force for positive change. A force that can help bring about sustainable agriculture and help ensure food security and food safety. I believe it particularly important that, as part of TUAC’s delegation, the IUF is represented here today. I believe that we put at risk the credibility of a process as important as the development of sound and sustainable agricultural and food policies if the contribution of millions of agricultural and food workers goes unrecognized and if they are not included in the policy development process. Regrettably this remains true in many fora including at the intergovernmental level. There is not, for example, a single reference to waged agriculture workers in Agenda 21, Chapter 14 on sustainable agriculture and rural development or in any of the associated texts. Still less recognition goes to the trade unions that these workers create and join and that then represent them. Trade unions through which they build organization and the essential strength and capacity to help develop and protect sustainable social and environmental standards in agriculture.

In conclusion if I may I would leave you with seven key points. 

First we call upon governments, particularly the governments of the United States and those within the European Union to monitor, together with rural producers, agricultural workers‘ trade unions and other relevant parties the real impact of subsidized exports on local agricultural production in many developing countries and to make public the results of this monitoring. Our membership believes that a fair and open evaluation of the impact would totally support  our current policy calling for an end to such export subsidies because they so often damage local agricultural capacity particularly in relation to basic food production.

Second we would ask for enthusiastic support for policy rooted in multifunctional agriculture. Not as some quirky or quaint form of agricultural side show but as a central plank of any policy for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Full acceptance of the importance of multifuncionality will allow agriculture to meet the world’s food needs while protecting critically important social, economic and environmental criteria. Our position therefore naturally encompasses rejection of the simplistic kind of agricultural liberalization proposed by the CAIRNS group.

Third we recognize that major agro-food transnational companies in the sector play an important role and that therefore a meaningful dialogue between such companies and their social counterparts at the global level, the IUF, is essential as an added and credible guarantee that they too respect the necessary elements of truly sustainable agricultural development and will do so in the future. Recent global agreements between the IUF, the International Tobacco Growers Association and four major international tobacco companies and between the IUF and Chiquita Brands International seek to underpin social standards that we believe are important for sustainable agriculture and rural development.  

This approach has also led to joint pesticides training activity in Africa with the global pesticide industry and its parent body formerly called the Global Crop Protection Federation and now renamed Crop Life International. 

However, and this is my fourth point, we part company with our social counterparts in industry in relation to the increasing use of genetically modified organisms in plant sciences and agricultural development. Our members oppose totally the increasing development of such technology without a significantly greater level of confidence that all the associated risks are known and avoidable. We therefore support an absolute application of the precautionary principle regarding this technology and a moratorium until industry’s confidence in the effectiveness of, necessity for and safety of this technology can be proved justified.

My fifth point is that truly sustainable agriculture and rural development must be built on a broader acceptance of and the respect for democratic rights and particularly the core labour standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), particularly in relation to their application to the agricultural sector. These rights must be recognized as a central component and a measure of sustainable agriculture. Without the right to form their own organizations there can be no serious way that those millions of workers can contribute meaningfully and, as I have said earlier, without their contribution we would dispute that true sustainable agriculture and rural development is achievable. In addition the promotion of sustainable employment and decent pay and working/living conditions for waged agricultural workers are essential elements of sustainable agriculture and rural development. 

My sixth point concerns the absolute necessity to improve occupational health and safety standards for agricultural workers and farmers as a key component and measure of sustainable agriculture and rural development and to ensure those standards are properly regulated and enforced. The direct relation between such standards in agriculture and the protection of the environment is self evident. I would put it even more strongly. Agriculture is simply not “sustainable” if the present level of fatalities, accidents, poisonings and ill health is not drastically reduced. 

My seventh and final point is addressed more to other civil society organizations than to governments. There must be improved links between farmers’ organizations, particularly small farmers’ organizations  and agricultural and food workers’ trade unions on the simple grounds that both these groups increasingly need to address similar problems and therefore need to cooperate more effectively together. 

Chair, historically, agricultural workers and their trade unions have been excluded from such decision-making processes affecting their industry and livelihoods. They too-often remain so today. There are many even beyond our ranks who would agree, particularly against falling confidence amongst consumers in those who currently regulate and monitor the food and agricultural system, that active and recognized participation in the process is long overdue.  Agricultural workers and their trade unions can and must be encouraged and permitted to play a greater role in food and agricultural policy issues for the benefit of the population as a whole, and in line with the basic mandate that I quoted at the start of these remarks..

Thank you