Crop subsidies have worldwide impact, says West African cotton farmer

Winona Daily News
http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2006/04/22/news/00lead.txt

Crop subsidies have worldwide impact,
says West African cotton farmer

By Brian Voerding

Seydou Ouedraogo was weary, jet-lagged from flying halfway across the world and spending a week traveling the Midwest with only the conviction of his message to keep him on his feet.

The cotton farmer from Burkina Faso in western Africa stood in the Lewiston office of the Land Stewardship Project on Friday, clad in a goldenrod robe and pants, eying the potluck lunch and smiling politely at the 20 people who had gathered to listen to him.

They ate first, and the food seemed to give him life. He stood, grinned broadly, rubbed his stomach and began telling the audience how government crop subsidies have bolstered global machinated production, while he and his people, who handpick cotton on small fields, are slowly dying.

“I don’t want to be in politics, and I don’t want to be a politician,” Ouedraogo said in French, speaking through two interpreters. “I just want to be a farmer. I just want to feed and clothe my family.”

Ouedraogo’s trip was sponsored by the LSP and Oxfam, an international development and poverty relief organization, as part of their work to create fair trade opportunities for African farmers and lobby for subsidy reform and increased funding for rural agriculture programs in the upcoming 2007 federal farm bill.

Ouedraogo’s family, who lived in the central desert region of Burkina Faso, was unable to afford to send him to school. As a young adult, he traveled south in search of farmable land and received a small plot from village elders, where he began growing cotton, corn and other crops.

Cotton was for income. Everything else was food for his wife and daughter and 15 other family members.

The problem was that farmers in western Africa can’t sell their cotton.

The U.S. government awarded $15 billion in cotton subsidies between 1995 and 2004, the vast majority to large cotton producers, according to data from the Environmental Working Group. The European Union has similar systems.

Those large producers, driven to receive higher subsidies by producing more and more, have saturated the global market and depressed prices with processed cotton, Ouedraogo said.

African farmers who handpick cotton and can’t process it have only a small market.

Ouedraogo, who serves as the deputy secretary general of the National Union of Cotton Growers in Burkina Faso, estimated that 98 percent of his country’s cotton is exported raw and at meager prices.

He also estimated that the average farmer in Africa makes about $200 profit each year on cotton and doesn’t do much better with other crops.

“People say, ‘If things aren’t working with cotton, then go grow corn,’” he said. “But the same subsidies are happening for everything else.”

The younger generation, he said, heads to the United States looking for a way to make a living. His brother did that six years ago, leaving Ouedraogo alone to work their fields.

Cotton isn’t exactly a staple crop in Winona County, but attendees, many of whom run small farms or community-supported agriculture operations, found ways to connect to Ouedraogo’s message, calling for change to unsustainable subsidy systems.

“We need to keep up our struggle, our fight,” he told them. “We can’t expect immediate results … but if you all disappear, I will disappear as well.”

After his talk at the Land Stewardship office, Ouedraogo donned a jacket and toured Jennifer and Mike Rupprecht’s farm, a certified organic operation north of Lewiston. He walked through the barn, looking at the free-range chickens, and followed the Rupprechts toward one of the paddocks where their herd of beef cattle graze. He stepped briefly into the paddock, but ran after one of the cows trotted toward him.

“I didn’t realize they moved so quickly,” he said, laughing after he was safely on the other side of the fence.

When he met Mike Rupprecht, he gripped Rupprecht’s right hand with both of his own. Ouedraogo raised his hands, gazed up at the silos, and said: “We all are good farmers. We do good work.”

Reporter Brian Voerding can be reached at (507) 453-3514 or at brian.voerding@winonadailynews.com.

top