From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERliving from low-priced and volatile commodity markets such as theone for bananas. In St Lucia, local producers have come up with abrand name,‘Farm Fresh – St Lucia’s Best’, to build the profile of localsuppliers, but they need training and technical support to meet thequality and quantity standards required by the tourist trade.New corporate buyers could potentially help to revitalise smallscaleagriculture. Such an outcome will only occur, however, if farmersorganise to increase their ability to negotiate a fair deal, and if theyreceive the support they desperately need to raise the quality andquantity of their output.BOX 3.1FISHERIES: MANAGING A FINITE RESOURCEFor millions of poor people in rural areas, fishing is a source oflivelihood, income, and food. Fish provides at least 20 per cent ofthe protein consumption of 2.6 billion people (almost half theglobal population), 38 and fishing directly or indirectly employsalmost 500 million people across the developing world. Despitethe fact that the world’s fisheries generate approximately $120bnper year, 95 per cent of the labour force survives on $2 per dayor less. 39 Developing countries account for 50 per cent of thetotal volume of traded fish, representing the single biggest fooditem in developing-country exports. 40The international trading system in fish suffers from many of thesame problems as agriculture: developing-country governmentsare being pressured to open their markets to cheap imports,with devastating impacts on local fishers, while Northerngovernments persist in heavily subsidising their fishingindustries, which fish with little regard for the health of coastalecosystems. 41 About half the world’s fish catch is taken by smallscalefishers and the other half by large-scale corporate fishingfleets, but small-scale fisheries generate 20 times more jobs. 42In most developing countries, fisheries management is weakand overfishing and conflicts between small-scale fishers andcommercial fleets abound. Over the past 40 years, standing fishstocks in South-East Asia have been reduced to less then aquarter of their former levels, prompting governments in many126