Battle over rice trade touches soul of Asia

HONG KONG, Thursday (AFP) - When the anti-globalisation movement rolled into Hong Kong this week for the WTO talks, the first thing they did was to build a shrine to that most basic of foodstuffs - rice.

In a ceremony of chanting and dancing, activists from across Asia gathered in a carnival-like atmosphere to honour the simple seed that has sustained populations for millennia.

"Rice is not just food," said Indonesian rice-grower Ahmad Sumeri. "It is our life, it is our culture.

"It is God's gift to us and God gives us life through rice," said the farmer from the main island of Java.

Few crops are as politically, culturally or economically important to Asians and as a result rice has become a pressing and high-profile issue at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong this week.

Around 1,000 South Korean farmers, who have been involved in sporadic clashes with police near the conference venue, are imbued with deep-rooted anger at WTO plans to open up domestic agricultural markets.

"Basically if the Korean government is asked to choose between agriculture and manufacturing, they would select agriculture, ignoring the manufacturing sector, because politically, agriculture is quite powerful," said Kang Moon-Sung, head of the WTO research team at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

Rice farmers are heavily subsidised for both economic and political reasons in Korea where the rural sector is very well represented in the national assembly.

However, the country faces a glut of cheap imports if the WTO's plans to cut subsidies and tariffs comes into law.

Despite the country's rapid industrial development of the past 30 years, South Koreans still identify strongly with their agrarian roots.

For many farmers, legislation passed last month that lifted an import quota cap from four percent of all rice consumed to some eight percent was a drastic step towards market liberalisation.

And their reaction has been to come out fighting with violent protests in Seoul and at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Busan last month.

They have also battled police at trade liberalisation talks all over the world and several activists, including one at the last WTO ministerial meeting in Mexico in 2003, have taken their own lives in protest.

In its simplest form, their militancy is a reaction to the perceived loss of their livelihoods.

But it goes deeper than that: rice cultivation is such a part of Korean culture that market liberalisation measures are seen also as an attack on their culture.