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“The Ability to Buy Food”

The WTO and Trade-Oriented Food Security

Bachelor Thesis in International Relations and

International Organizations

Elisabeth van Kessel S3162028 Supervisor Dr. Filipe Dos Reis International law and Geopolitics 2 June 2020 Word count: 9338

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Declaration

I hereby declare that this thesis, ““The Ability to Buy Food”. The WTO and Trade-Oriented Food Security” is my own work and my own effort and that it has not been accepted anywhere else for the award of any other degree or diploma. Where sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged.

Name: Elisabeth van Kessel Date: 6 Juno 2020

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Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations

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Chapter 1

– Food a Fundamental Human Right

1.1 Food a Fundamental Human Right 4

1.2 Research structure 6

Chapter 2

– Postcolonialism and Dependency Theory

2.1 Postcolonialism 7

2.2 Dependency theory 8

2.3 Postcolonialism alongside Dependency theory 10 2.4 Genealogy and the concept of food security 11

Chapter 3 - Food Security The Ability to Buy Food

3.1 Starting on unequal grounds 13

3.2 Doha development Round & increased dependency 16 3.3 Trade oriented Food security in times of crisis 21

Chapter 4

- Dependency and Postcolonialism in South Korea

4.1 Dependency in South Korea 23

4.2 Consequences on farmers in South Korea 25

4.3 South Korea Dependency and Deculturalization 26

Chapter 5

− Conclusion

29

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List of Abbreviations

AoA Agreement on Agriculture

EU European Union

G-8 Group of 8: Canada, France, Germany,Italy, Japan,

United Kingdom, United States and the European Union

G-33 Group of 33

WTO World Trade Organisation

US United States

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1 - Food a Fundamental Human Right

The fundamental right to adequate food is recognized in international law with its most basic provision stated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR). Although food is considered a fundamental right, 13,4 percent of the world population suffers from hunger1

nearly all of whom are located in developing countries— a vast 98%. Food security is under threat and problems emerge most forceful and enduring among communities that are disadvan-taged or vulnerable.2 Scholars warn for population growth to become increasingly pressing on

food production in the coming years while simultaneously climate change and droughts already account for food crisis.3 Although these factors pose serious challenges and undoubtedly

attrib-ute to hunger, it would be short-sighted to overlook the role of neoliberal policies dominating the global agricultural market.

In contrast to common misconception, food insecurity is not a result of food scarcity. Since 1950 global food production has kept ahead of population growth, and many of the countries experiencing export more agricultural products than they import.4 Economics and Trade related

policies are decisive of people’s accessibility to food. WTO led market liberalization, privati-zation of lands and the adhering decentraliprivati-zation of the state are defined as key aspects that hampered responses to recent famines.5 In 2007 and 2008 the world was struck by a global food

crisis and increased prices in food markets demonstrated how food security problems were gen-erated through neoliberal market mechanisms.6

This has also become increasingly clear in South Korea where neoliberal policies spurred the economy but simultaneously lead to the collapse of agriculture and sacrificed consumer and farmers’ interests. Trade liberalisation in Agriculture led to high dependence of foreign food imports which makes its population highly susceptible to the volatility of the international ag-ricultural market.7 Illustrative of this dependence is the 2007- 2008 food crisis when poor and

1 von Grebmer Klaus et al., 2017 Global Hunger Index: The Inequalities of Hunger (Intl Food Policy Res Inst,

2017).p.1

2 Klaus et al. p.3

3 “We Are Headed for a World Food Crisis. Here’s How to Stop It | Time,” accessed April 16, 2020,

https://time.com/5216532/global-food-security-richard-deverell/.

4 Carmen Gonzales, “Trade Liberalization, Food Security, and the Environment: The Neoliberal Threat to

Sustain-able Rural Development” 14, no. 419 (2004). p.428

5 Stephen Devereux, “Why Does Famine Persist in Africa?,” Food Security 1, no. 1 (January 2009). p

6 Melanie Sommerville, Jamey Essex, and Philippe Le Billon, “The ‘Global Food Crisis’ and the Geopolitics of Food

Security,” Geopolitics 19, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 239–65.

7 Byeong - Seon Yoon, Won - KyuSong and Hae-jin Lee, “The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in South Korea,” May

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middle income families felt great pressure induced by double-digit price increases of wheat related foods.8 In response, movements emerged that are challenging the WTO’s neoliberal

global governance regime for agriculture.9

Although WTO liberalisation of agricultural trade policies played a big part in the generation of a distorted global agricultural food production, liberalisation and increased trade continues to be presented as the solution to food insecurity. The WTO plays an important role in formu-lating the food security problem and claims that agricultural trade liberalisation is both neces-sary and conducive for achieving food security.10 Therefore, this thesis is concerned with the following research question: How is food security framed in the WTO and how does this fram-ing maintain problems of food security in developing countries?

Multiple scholars have argued that political knowledges and framings surrounding food security are not neutral, but rather subject to power dynamics.11l12 By means of genealogy it looks into

the trade oriented framing of food security within the WTO and claims it historically favoured developed countries. In addition, it establishes how developed countries aimed to expand their respective shares on the global agricultural markets through imposing agricultural liberalisation on developing countries.

The thesis will adopt postcolonialism and dependency theory as theoretical lens while analysing the dominant trade oriented food security frame. It is the objective to demonstrate how Depend-ency theory and postcolonialism continue to be relevant in today’s world. The unusual combi-nation of these quite distinct theoretical frameworks attributes to the existent literature on food security as both are adopted with the aim to clarify how the conceptualisation of food security in the WTO obscures questions of inequalities and domination. These theories are applied to demonstrate that the WTO conceptualisation of ‘food security’ in a way fuels food insecurity

8 Kim Chul-Kyoo, “The Global Food Crisis and Food Sovereignty in South Korea,” n.d.,

http://www.jpi.or.kr/sky-board/download.sky?fid=3397&gid=5305&code=jpiworld.

9 Larry L. Burmeister and Yong-Ju Choi, “Food Sovereignty Movement Activism in South Korea: National Policy

Impacts?,” Agriculture and Human Values 29, no. 2 (June 2012): 247–58. p.247

10 Arild Aurvåg Farsund, Carsten Daugbjerg, and Oluf Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade: Reconciling Discourses

in the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Trade Organization,” Food Security 7, no. 2 (April 2015): 383–91. p.384

11 Sommerville, Essex, and Le Billon, “The ‘Global Food Crisis’ and the Geopolitics of Food Security.” p.241 12 Farsund, Daugbjerg, and Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade,” April 2015.

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and maintains the structural conditions that generate food insecurity and crisis. 13

1.2 Research structure

The following research structure will answer the main question; The next chapter presents the theoretical framework introducing postcolonial theory and dependency theory and offers an explanation for how they could complement each other. The third chapter examines WTO dis-course of food security. The fourth section includes a case study on how WTO agricultural policies affected South Korea and how WTO policies generate greater food insecurity. The last section summarizes the findings and offers an overarching conclusion.

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2 - Postcolonialism and Dependency theory

“Dependency theory chooses a structuralist and socioeconomic perspective, seeing imperial-ism and development as tied to the unfolding of capitalimperial-ism, whereas postcolonial theory

fa-vours a post-structuralist and cultural perspective, linking imperialism and agency to dis-course and the politics of representation.14

Scholars have primarily detected a tension between the two theories as; “economy and capi-talism versus culture and representation.”15 In this chapter I introduce both theories and argue that despite the fact that these two bodies might have ignored or criticised each other’s mis-sions and writings16 in the context of food security these two have areas of convergence and should be read alongside each other. The aim is to criticise neoliberal frame of food security while applying both lenses.

2.1 Postcolonial Theory

Postcolonialism was crystallized as theory and field of study in Edward said book Orientalism.17

Although ‘postcolonialism’ continues to be contested, most scholars agree that it provides us with critique of western structures of knowledge and power.18 It is conceptualized as reflexive

Western thought aiming at rethinking the terms on which knowledge is produced through the duality of the colonizer and colonized. European colonialisms applied different techniques of domination penetrating deep into some societies in order to produce an economic imbalance that was indispensable for the growth of European capitalism and industry.19

Postcolonialism is defined as “post” in historical and chronological terms. Homi Bhabha argued that ‘post’ can be taken as meaning ‘beyond ’ that is, ‘on the borderlines of the present.20 This

thesis applies Bhabhas meaning of ‘post’ and argues that western structures of knowledge and power lead to continuing dual relationship of dominant developed state powers and

14 Ilan Kapoor, “Capitalism, Culture, Agency: Dependency versus Postcolonial Theory,” Third World Quarterly 23,

no. 4 (August 1, 2002): 647–64.

15 Kapoor. p.648

16 Christine Sylvester, “Development Studies and Postcolonial Studies: Disparate Tales of the ‘Third World,’” Third

World Quarterly 20, no. 4 (1999): 703–21. P.703

17 Said Edward, Orientalism (New York, NY, US: Pantheon Books, 1978).

18 Ella Shohat, “Notes on the ‘Post-Colonial,’” Social Text, no. 31/32 (1992): 99–113. 19 Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (Routledge, 2015). p.5

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marginalised developing countries. Colonization has long lasting and inequitable results ex-tending well beyond the independence of the colonized who remain “condemned only to use western technology but not to invent it. Fixed zones of dependency and peripherality, stigma-tised as underdeveloped, ruled by a superior, developed or metropolitan colonizer.21 This thesis argues in line with Said as developed country dominance within the early years of the WTO led to increased dependency in developing countries.

In addition, the application of a postcolonial lens sheds light on how western ideas of develop-ment were imposed on developing countries. Postcolonial scholars of developdevelop-ment, such as Arturo Escobar, argued that ideas on development are based on western knowledge and devel-oping countries should follow similar patterns of neoliberalism and industrialization in order to become developed. This western view on development, overlooks historical inequalities of col-onization that generated “backward” conditions within the underdeveloped world. In addition it disregards unequal economic and political conditions in the developing countries or the ine-qualities within nations.22

It is important to apply these insights of postcolonial studies on the discourse on food security. For it reveals how western ideas on food security reign while disregarding historical inequalities that find their origin colonial history. Hence this thesis applies postcolonial theory while criti-cally assessing WTO discourse on food security and the neoliberal practices in agriculture it brings about.

21 Edward Wiliam Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Harvard University Press, 2000). p.295

22 Arturo Derde wereld : Anthropologie Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the

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2.2 Dependency theory

Marxist-oriented thinkers provided for useful insights on marginalization in the centre periph-ery model, in which an underdeveloped periphperiph-ery is exploited by a developed centre.23 This

exploitative relation invokes a condition of social inequality where a ruling class is placed at the top (centre) and a subject class at the bottom (periphery). André Gunder Frank applies the ‘dual society’ thesis. This thesis holds that the ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ sectors of developing societies are independent. The former sector is modern because of its exposure to the outside capitalist world. The latter is ‘underdeveloped’ because it has lacked such exposure; but it can be modernised through the diffusion of ‘capital, institutions, values’24

Also, Frank argues that underdevelopment is generated by the very same historical process which also [generates] economic development: the development of capitalism itself’25

Gatzweiler and his colleagues link marginality to poverty, defining marginality as “an involun-tary position and condition of an individual or group at the margins of social, political, eco-nomic, ecological and biophysical systems, preventing them from access to resources, assets, services, restraining freedom of choice, preventing the development of capabilities, and

even-tually causing extreme poverty.”26

This thesis will focus on the dependence of lesser developed countries on developed ones. And will shed light on how neoliberalism in agriculture results in dependency and underdevelop-ment. Nonetheless, it considers the centre not necessarily in strict geographical determinations. The centre is embodied as the agricultural hegemons within the WTO whom imposed neolib-eralism on developing countries which led to continued marginalisation of these developing countries.

23 Hagen Koo, “Centre-Periphery Relations and Marginalization: Empirical Analysis of the Dependency Model of

Inequality in Peripheral Nations,” Development and Change 12, no. 1 (1981): 55–76. p.

24 Anton Gunther Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press,

1969).p.4

25 Frank. p.9

26 Raghubir Chand, Etienne Nel, and Stanko Pelc, Societies, Social Inequalities and Marginalization: Marginal

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2.3 Postcolonial theory alongside Dependency theory

This thesis reads dependency theory alongside postcolonial theory in an attempt to revalidate both theories and highlight their continued relevance in today’s world.27 Dependency and

post-colonial theory cover some similar territory and share important common concerns.28 Yet at the

same time, as Christine Sylvester points out, ‘One field begins where the other refuses to look’29

Especially when studying the discourse on food security it is helpful to adopt both theories as these critical theories can both offer interesting historical insights on neoliberal Western mo-dernity and complement one another.

Postcolonialism critically examines superior western thought of the developing world as “the other”. Scholars have argued that postcolonialism should orientate its agenda to practical and material, as opposed to ideational, importance in those places.30 Hence, dependency theory can be useful in studying materialization of inequalities. We can combine these theories as post-colonialism is often focussed on cultural representation. Dependency theory could complement postcolonialism in revealing the ‘structures and pressures in which agents make choices, what to communicate or export, what to import and graft, when to reshuffle their own cultural rep-ertoire to exploit bolster shrink or transform their own cultural traditions and heritages. Post colonialism in combination with dependency theory offers possibilities to orientate its agenda to issues that have some practical and material, as opposed to ideational, importance in the developing world.’31 Postcolonialism can in turn complement dependencies obsession with

global capitalism trough offering accounts of culture and representation.

It is therefore that this thesis elects dependency theory in combination with postcolonialism as discourse on international policy that is greatly determined by western dominance and superi-ority. This thesis shows how western neoliberal policies in global agriculture maintain inequal-ities and generate dependencies in which underdeveloped periphery is exploited by a developed centre. Unequal exchange through trade argued in dependency theory goes hand in hand with postcolonial discourses that assume western cultural superiority. Through analysing the histor-ical context in which food security was framed in the WTO, it becomes possible to trace present global inequities in contemporary economics, politics and culture.

27 Kapoor, “Capitalism, Culture, Agency.” P.647 28 Kapoor.

29 Sylvester, “Development Studies and Postcolonial Studies.” p.704 30 Sylvester. p. 718

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2.4 Genealogy and the concept of Food Security

This thesis aims to study the trade oriented conceptualization of food security and its effects through conducting a genealogy on WTO’s food security discourse. Foucault explored how 'power and knowledge directly imply one another' and found that, knowledge is not simply socially constructed but simultaneously co-constituted with power.32

This thesis applies the Foucauldian notion and analyses how the meaning of ‘food security’ defined by the WTO is co-constituted with power dynamics within the organisation.

Subject to analysis are the statements of WTO officials on food security during multiple WTO rounds. I apply these statements to demonstrate continuity in food security conceptualisation. According to Foucault “Genealogy is concerned with a more modest inquiry into the emergence of objects of knowledge and intervention and the ‘regimes of truth’ that grow up around them’33

Within genealogy, historical contexts and nondiscursive factors are considered and conse-quently includes institutions, events, practices, politics and economics.34

The analysis sheds light on the historical contributions to practices of power in the specific food security discourse within the WTO. Furthermore, it examines the conditions in which discursive processes on food security were practiced with the objective to identify present power relations.

By means of conducting a genealogy from a postcolonial and dependency theory perspective it is demonstrated how “food security” is not an unproblematic policy term but rather is a con-tested political concept which must be read in the historical context in which it came into being. Applying genealogy facilitates applying a dependency theory and postcolonial theory lens as it enables to study cultural discursive contexts and combines economic capitalist realities. It demonstrates how trade oriented food security discourse benefitted the interests of developed countries and facilitated their dominance over the global agricultural market. This trade oriented framing of food security “delimited the range of policy options and thereby served as precursors

32 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Gallimard, 1975).

33 Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, C. Gordon (Ed.) (New York:

NY;Pan-theon, 1980). p.131

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to policy outcomes”35 In addition, it implies identifying the framing of the problem as a ‘causal

interpretation’ or a ‘causal story’ about ‘how the problem came into being’.36

The last chapter implies a case study on the negative impacts of the neoliberal food security frame in South Korea. South Korea evolved rapidly from a developing country into a developed one, and is acclaimed a neoliberal success story. Nonetheless, this case study argues that ne-oliberal development came at high costs. The case study aims to show how nene-oliberalism in agriculture results in higher food dependencies and results in the erasure of traditional cultures. The case study finds that neoliberal policies result in dependency and go hand in hand with postcolonial discourses that impose western neoliberal cultures in non-western societies.

35 Maarten Hajer and Wytske Versteeg, “A Decade of Discourse Analysis of Environmental Politics: Achievements,

Challenges, Perspectives,” Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 7, no. 3 (September 1, 2005): 175–84. p.178

36 Arild Aurvåg Farsund, Carsten Daugbjerg, and Oluf Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade: Reconciling Discourses

in the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Trade Organization,” Food Security 7, no. 2 (April 1, 2015): 383–91, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-015-0428-y. p.358

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3 - Trading Into Food Insecurity

Discourses can function as ideological systems of meaning which serve to naturalise and depoliticise uneven distributions of power and capital 37

This chapter aims to examine how the concept ‘food security’ is framed within the WTO and demonstrates how the concept is subject to the “interrelationship of forms of power and knowledge”.38 Secondly it elaborates on how this conceptualization contributed to the

mainte-nance of neo-liberal Agricultural trade policies, favouring developed nations and creating ev-ermore food dependency in developing ones. In the last section argues that the WTO concep-tualisation has influenced other international organisations discourse on food security. The fol-lowing section analyses the context in which the concept food security was framed in the first years of the WTO.

3.1 Starting on unequal grounds

The General Agreement of Trade Tariffs formed a first step in an ever enclosing discourse supportive of increased international trade. Agriculture had previously been a problematic point of negotiation within the GATT and did not rise to the top of the GATT negotiating agenda until the Uruguay round.39 This round, resulting in the foundation of the WTO in 1995, meant

a turning point and opened negotiations on agricultural trade policies. The foundation of WTO agriculture policy was embodied in the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) which had the “ob-jective to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system”40. Nonetheless, the

negotiation process which resulted in the very foundation of the AoA was far from impartial or fair.

From the start of the round in 1992 the US and the EU were the main players on the central stage and the majority of the other 106 countries were excluded from the negotiations.41 These

37 Rupert Alcock, “Speaking Food: A Discourse Analytic Study of Food Security” (University of Bristol, 2008). p.387 38 Arturo Escobar, “Discourse and Power in Development: Michel Foucault and the Relevance of His Work to the

Third World - Arturo Escobar, 1984,” Alternatives, July 1, 1984. p.379

39 Carmen G. Gonzalez, “Institutionalizing Inequality: The WTO Agreement on Agriculture, Food Security, and

Developing Countries Symposium: Trade, Sustainability and Global Governance,” Columbia Journal of

Environ-mental Law 27, no. 2 (2002): 433–90. p.449

40 “WTO | Agriculture - Article 20,” accessed April 27, 2020,

https://www.wto.org/eng-lish/tratop_e/agric_e/art20_e.htm.

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dominant agricultural powers shared the objective of expanding their respective shares on the global agricultural markets.42 Yet, both hegemons were unwilling to recognize their attribution

to problems present at that time. The US and EU structurally over‐produced in their domestic markets and used export subsidies in order to dump their surpluses on to world markets. These practices had brought about severe trade and food security problems in developing countries throughout the 1980s43 Nonetheless, the AoA neglected developing countries’ food insecurity

as it permitted developed countries to maintain high levels of agricultural support and protec-tion.

Consequently, these trade policies set out in the AoA received widespread criticism as it re-stricted developing countries in controlling their own food systems.44 Developing countries

brought up the issue of food security and argued how opening their agricultural markets could pose a threat to their food security as their agricultural industries were not compatible with developed agricultural industries. Western countries had developed through protectionism and now demanded the abolition of protectionist policies of less developed and newly independent states, Justifying it as “equal conditions for all”45. These ‘equal conditions' did not mean much

to underdeveloped Countries since colonialism had prevented development.46 This inequality

is conceptualized in the following comparison; “Expecting Africans to be competitive in a mar-ket game with Europeans and Americans is just as good as expecting a 10-year-old child to win a fight against a professional boxer just because they are fighting under the same conditions!”47

Due to western led imposition of liberalization developing countries overcame many differ-ences and cooperated to take a common stance. They called for the elimination of developed country protectionism and underscored the crucial role of agricultural support in non-industri-alized nations. Japan and South Korea, both net food importing nations, placed great emphasis on the need to support domestic production in order to promote food security.48 Which was

advanced by its proponents as “the ability of a country to produce most of its basic food

42 Gonzalez. p.452

43 Kevin Watkins, “Agriculture and Food Security in the GATT Uruguay Round,” Review of African Political

Econ-omy 18, no. 50 (199103): 38–50. p.39

44 Watkins. p.39

45 Branislav Dordevic et al., “Mechanisms of Establishing Neocolonial Domination in Africa,” Institute of

Interna-tional Politics and Economics, Belgrade, n.d., 130. p.18

46 Dordevic et al. p.18

47 Danilo Babic, “Mechanisms of Establishing Neocolonial Dominantion in Sub-Saharan Africa,” The Review of

International Affairs LXIX, no. 1169 (March 2018).

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necessities” safeguarding economic welfare of peasant producers. Food security meant the pro-tection of food preferences, and stability of a country from the vagaries of world trade in grain and other foodstuffs.49

Former conceptualizations of food security as domestic self-sufficiency did not stroke with in-terests of the US and EU as dominant surplus exporting parties. These dominant actors influ-enced the conceptualization of food security in the WTO. As the former definition of food se-curity formed a hurdle to liberalization of international agricultural markets, the concept was defined differently by developed nations. US officials argued that “food security” should not be equalled to “food self-sufficiency.” As US Secretary of Agriculture John Block put it at the

start of the Uruguay Round in 1986,

“the idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. ‘They could better ensure their food security by relying on US agricultural products, which are available, in most cases at lower cost”50.

In this historical context a trade oriented conceptualisation of food security rose to prominence and more importantly, hegemony. Food security became a discourse supportive of increased international trade in food.51 The come into being of the AoA is a crucial momentum that

ac-counts for the interrelation existent between discourse and power hierarchies.52 In contempt of

the free market ideology that represents the foundation of the WTO agreement on Agriculture, this discourse has enabled developed countries to continue their trade-distorting policies.53.

These trade distorting policies find their genesis in colonialism, in the postcolonial integration of many developing countries into the global trading system. Trade liberalization under the WTO reinforces these underlying trade and production patterns. According to Gonzales “underlying inequities in the global trading system are originated in the colonial division of labour that relegated the colonized "periphery" to the production of primary agricultural products for the benefit of the colonizing "core."” 54 As a consequence of this

eco-nomic specialization, many developing countries currently rely on export-oriented crop

49 Walden Bello, Strategic Policy for Food Security Bello, 1 1 (Public Policy, 1995). 50 Paul Roberts, The End of Food (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008). P.130

51 Richard Philip Lee, “The Politics of International Agri-Food Policy: Discourses of Trade-Oriented Food Security

and Food Sovereignty,” Environmental Politics 22, no. 2 (March 2013): 216–34. p. 221

52 Kapoor, “Capitalism, Culture, Agency.” 53 Gonzalez, “Institutionalizing Inequality.” P.460 54 Gonzalez. P.423

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production as a means of generating the foreign exchange earnings with which to purchase manufactured goods and food products from developed countries.

Hence, the terms of the Agreement are a representation of the historic continuity of inequalities rooted in the colonial trade relations. In addition developing countries had little say in the ne-gotiating the AoA which resulted in its unequal agreement favouring developed countries. On top of this, the institutional structure of the WTO left undeveloped countries often marginalized and without suitable participation in decision-making making processes.55 The unequal effects

of the agreement became more apparent during its implementation, as did the inequality in competence of developing countries to defend themselves within the WTO arena.56

3.2 DOHA Development Round

As stated in the former section, the Agreement on Agriculture structurally disfavoured the in-terests of developing countries whom did not possess equal technological expertise to devel-oped ones. Furthermore, patented western innovations and restricted access to western markets limited developing countries’ export potential.57 For these reasons, the Doha round received the

name Doha development round; meaning it held the objective to include developing countries. Nevertheless, the round continued with the agenda of increased agricultural liberalization and aimed at further lifting domestic subsidies. This focus on further liberalisation represents de-veloped countries’ hypocrisy since the European Union and the USA accounted for the highest agricultural subsidies at the start of the Doha round.58 It was due to these agricultural subsidies

in combination with developing countries’ limited market access that the perception of inequal-ity in the AoA was considerably high.59 Thereupon, former WTO Director-General Peter Suth-erland affirmed that ‘Doha was founded on a notion of historic unfairness.”60

During the DOHA round dominant agricultural players, like the EU, further worsened devel-opment of agriculture by exporting their surpluses to developing regions for the sake of

55 Richard E. Mshomba, Africa and the World Trade Organization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009),

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511674563.

56 Nora McKeon, Food Security Governance: Empowering Communities, Regulating Corporations (Routledge,

2014). P.45

57 Farsund, Daugbjerg, and Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade,” April 2015. 388

58 Babic, “Mechanisms of Establishing Neocolonial Dominantion in Sub-Saharan Africa.” P.12 59 Farsund, Daugbjerg, and Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade,” April 2015. p. 388

60 P Sutherland, “A Future for the World Trade Organization?,” vol. 1 (The 2010 Jan Tumlir Lecture, Brussels:

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reducing their proper storage costs. These supplies discouraged the production of local farmers meaning that in practice, not much had changed for the benefit of developing countries. As a result, food security problems in developing countries continued to materialize. At the start of the Doha round, Miguel Rodríguez Mendoza, then Deputy Director-General of WTO, main-tained that the solution to food security problems laid in international trade:

“History has shown that food security does not equal self-sufficiency of a country. It has more

to do with international trade in food products that makes them available at competitive prices and sets the right incentives for those countries where they can be produced most efficiently. Food shortages have to do with poverty rather than with being a net food importer. Food secu-rity nowadays lies not only in the local production of food, but in a country’s ability to finance imports of food through exports of other goods.61

The above mentioned fragment demonstrates the historical continuity of the trade oriented food security discourse of the 90s. According to this definition food security is reached through competitive advantages which implies the reliance on exports of other goods to enhance a coun-tries’ purchasing power. This conceptualization decontextualizes the realities of acute hunger and famine. Food insecurities are depoliticised by a growth-oriented discourse which repeti-tively offers ‘poverty alleviation’ through macroeconomic reform.62 Accordingly, the food

se-curity within the WTO reduces food sese-curity to a countries’ ability to buy food.

Despite the continuity in WTO’s vision on food security, the Doha round distinguished itself from previous rounds regarding the food security debate. Especially in 2014, as developing countries led by India increasingly countered developing countries’ total trade liberalisation demands.63 The dominant trade discourse on food security was challenged in the WTO, as

developing countries organized themselves mostly in the G-3364. India took the lead in offering

an alternative ‘food sovereignty’ discourse in name of other developing countries. Alternative

61 Lee, “The Politics of International Agri-Food Policy.”p.222

62 Alcock, “Speaking Food: A Discourse Analytic Study of Food Security.” 63 Farsund, Daugbjerg, and Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade,” April 2015.

64G33: coalition of developing countries, founded before the 2003 Cancun ministerial Conference. Coalition that

has cooperated and coordinated at times of the Doha round of the WTO specifically concerning agriculture. The group led by India aims to limit the market opening of developing countries. The group argues for exemptions on specific products which should enable developing countries to exempt specific products from tariff reductions, and a "special safeguard mechanism" aiming at permitting tariff increases in response to import surges.

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counter framings were also supported by a G-10 coalition of developing countries. A crucial factor that connected these developing countries was the idea of obtaining ‘special safeguard mechanisms’ that aimed to empower governments to protect poor farmers. The centre of the negotiations was the conflict between agricultural trade regulations biased in favour of devel-oped countries facing developing countries to safeguard food security of their citizens.65 As a

result, these conflicts on agricultural issues resulted in the rounds deadlock. After talks broke down in July 2008, Indian trade minister accounted the following; ‘I can negotiate commerce but I cannot negotiate livelihood security.’ 66 This statement

empha-sizes how agriculture is not a standard commodity subject to growth oriented negotiations but concerns crucial alimentation issues.

Counter-framing attempts issued by developing countries, did not result in a shift of the domi-nant trade oriented ‘food security’ expressed by WTO officials. The priority of the WTO and powerful actors within the WTO (G8) continues to be trade liberalization. Former actors are concerned that developing countries might decrease their reliance on the international markets and place a greater emphasis on food self-sufficiency.67 To that end, gains that result from the

conclusion of the DOHA round are likely to be as unequal as they previously were as most scenario models of have shown high-income countries to get the major share of the gains, with developing countries benefiting considerably less, or potentially being net losers from any WTO deal.68 Lastly, a greater emphasis on food security was not presumable when analysing

recent declarations of WTO officials.

Even when, in 2007-2008, the food bill for the world’s poor rose by 40 percent, trade remained to be the answer to civil unrest fuelled by these price shocks.69 While at the time of what soon

came to be known as ‘the global food crisis’ the trade oriented concept of food security was reinforced in the WTO. Simultaneously, this conceptualisation was also advocated in

65 McKeon, Food Security Governance. P.47 66 McKeon.p.46

67 Matias E. Margulis, “The Regime Complex for Food Security: Implications for the Global Hunger Challenge,”

Global Governance 19, no. 1 (2013): 53–67.p.65

68 Timothy A. Wise, “Promise or Pitfall? The Limited Gains from Agricultural Trade Liberalisation for Developing

Countries,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 36, no. 4 (2009): 855–70.

69 David Rieff, The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century (Simon and Schuster,

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governments the media and academic audiences.70 The following fragment concerns a media

intervention by Pascal Lamy to the WTO members at times of the global food crisis:

Various farmers groups have called for ‘food sovereignty’, by which they mean greater self-sufficiency, like the United Nations Rapporteur. Clearly, international trade was not the source of the food crises. If anything, international trade has reduced the price of food over the years through greater competition, and enhanced consumer purchasing power. International trade has also brought about undisputable efficiency gains in agricultural production… To suggest that less trade, and greater self-sufficiency, are the solutions to food security, would be to argue that trade was itself to blame for the crisis71.

This passage is illustrative of how the food security debate remains focussed on international trade and comparative advantage maximalisation fuelled by the production of export commod-ities. Lamy addresses agricultural production directly and refers to a relationship between trade and efficiency gains. In this respect he has described trade as a ‘transmission belt’.72 This

con-ceptualization assumes that trade benefits would spur the economies of developing countries and generate income which can be used to import the food that is demanded by its population.

When compiling these statements of WTO officials similarities are that they all favour liberal-isation of agricultural trade resulting in efficiency gains. However, there is abundant empirical weakness in this dominant conceptualization of trade based food security for multiple reasons; First of all, the fact that capital is freely mobile implies that foreign corporations buy land in developing countries for advantages and to capitalize off of climate and low labour costs. Global agricultural value chains are characterized by transnational ownership of farms in de-veloping countries where they dominate production and trade of food. It is due to this acquisi-tion of land, referred to as ‘landgrabs’, that gains from agricultural trade are likely to flow to the owners of the capital, whom often reside in developed countries. In consequence, local farmers merely supply those firms or work for paid labour on large-scale foreign owned farms.73

For this reason many developing countries in which land is bought up by big agri-corporations

70 Matias E. Margulis, “Trading Out of the Global Food Crisis? The World Trade Organization and the Geopolitics

of Food Security,” Geopolitics 19, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 322–50,. P.335

71 “WTO | News - Speech - DG Pascal Lamy - Trade Is Vital for Food Security, Lamy Tells Agricultural Economists,”

accessed May 21, 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl203_e.htm.

72 Lee, “The Politics of International Agri-Food Policy.”p222

73 Jennifer Clapp, “Trade Liberalization and Food Security - Examining the Linkages” (Quaker United Nations

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do not benefit from trade liberalisation as the export-led trade benefits are not enhancing local ‘consumer purchasing power’ as Lamy argues in his address to the WTO. The trade oriented frame of food security is increasingly disputed as it becomes clear that neoliberalism in agri-culture does not result in higher purchasing power in developing countries. Therefor we must conclude that the discourse of trade- oriented food security enunciates a vision of trade benefits rather than of appropriate forms of agriculture.74

Secondly, Neo liberalist ideology favours fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, privatization, and greatly reduced government spending.75 Agricultural land is privatized or foreign owned

and government spending is greatly reduced, how could a country then support its citizens in times of famine? Production processes have changed and farmers have become merely involved in a fraction of the production process. Sovereignty of farmers on their products shrink and their connections to the market are cut off.76 “Both the consumption and the production patterns are

shaped by the firms where the aim for profit to gets ahead the priority of food security.”77 In

addition, neoliberalism in agriculture leads to less democracy in the realm of agriculture as production and farmland are increasingly under the control of few bigger agri-food companies.

It is for these reasons that one must conclude that as long as ‘making profit’ remains to be the priority of the free market and multinationals, food security cannot be guaranteed through in-creased trade and liberalisation. Neoliberalism in agriculture limits government control and is subjecting food security to the vagaries of the international market. Rather than interrupting the structural conditions of inequality and domination within the global agro-food system, neolib-eral food security depoliticizes the issue in subjecting it to the market severely limiting the aid possibilities to marginalized peoples who suffer from hunger.

This once again shows the importance of understanding the concept of food security in the historical context of global political and economic structures, rather than treating it as an unex-pected natural concept. The next section discusses how the trade oriented food security dis-course affected international organisations concerned with the global governance of food .

74 Lee, “The Politics of International Agri-Food Policy.”p222

75 Will Kenton, “Neoliberalism,” Investopedia, accessed May 5, 2020,

https://www.in-vestopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp.

76 Özgür Bor, “Agrarian Transformation: Power and Dominance in Markets,” International Journal of Food and

Agricultural Economics, 2013, 1–12.p1.

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3.3 Discourse and the International Institutions

The trade oriented framing of food security is problematic since it prioritizes economic effi-ciency as priority over the human right to food. The food security narrative of the WTO is tightly linked to ‘efficiency gains’ generated through trade and its subsequent effects. The ex-cessive focus on efficiency through trade makes trade to become an end, rather than a means to an end. The focus on efficiency is not very surprising to prevail in a neoliberal organisation like the WTO, yet the trade oriented discourse on food security has conjointly been implemented by the very institutions that were supposed to safeguard food security. The Food and Agricul-ture Organisation declared to be committed to “the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free of hunger.”78 It became clear that the Food and Agricultural

organ-isation was influenced by the conclusion of the Uruguay Round in their discursive framing of food security. In 1996 during the World Food summit in Rome the FAO declared; ‘we will strive to ensure that food, agricultural trade and overall trade policies are conducive to fostering food security for all through a fair and market-oriented world trade system’79

This framing confirms that, also in these organisations, trade is being envisaged as the solution to the food security problem.80 In consequence, this led to a mass enforcement of WTO rules

and standards adapted by World Bank and IMF. This implies that food security governance and the institutions representing food security, became increasingly entangled with mainstream ne-oliberal notions of developmentalism and economic growth as expressed in World Bank and FAO documents.81

What is particularly alarming is that during the Doha development round, at times of the 2007-2008 food crisis, the WTO was granted a significant role in high-level deliberations on food security and gained equal footing as the FAO and World Food programme. This has caused WTO officials to emerge as new players in determining global food security policies. Meaning that due to its routinised role as legitimate and authoritative voice on the issue of food security, greater influence over the agenda and norms in the governance of food security is granted to

78 “The Right to Adequate Food” (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, n.d.),

http://www.fao.org/3/b358e/b358e.pdf.

79 FAO, “Rome Declaration on World Food Security” (Rome, 1996), 13–17. 80 Farsund, Daugbjerg, and Langhelle, “Food Security and Trade,” April 1, 2015.

81 Lucy Jarosz, “Comparing Food Security and Food Sovereignty Discourses,” Dialogues in Human Geography 4,

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the WTO than before the crisis82 As knowledge production and discourse will continue to shape

the conception of food security83, granting WTO officials a role in solving the food security

problems is counter effective. Principally because, the WTO neglects historical inequalities and its proper role in how the food security problem came into being.

In reaction to the inclusion of the WTO into processes of international governance on food security, 200 NGOs mobilised under the umbrella of “Our World is Not for Sale”. These NGOs launched a campaign directed at the heads of the WTO and global policymakers rejecting the WTO as solution to the food crisis.84 During recent decades, increased scholarly attention has

been attributed to emerging alternative framings of food security as flaws neoliberalism in ag-riculture become increasingly visible. 85Food sovereignty” an alternative interpretation of food

security that focuses on ‘people’s right to food and to decide about modes of production, en-tailing local or regional self-sufficiency’.86 For the limited scope of the thesis it is limited to

answering how the trade oriented food security was framed and maintained through WTO dis-course and policies. By addressing the problems of this conceptualization the importance of emerging alternative representations hopefully becomes clear. The following chapter on South Korea demonstrates economic and cultural practicalities of neoliberal ‘food security’.

82 Margulis, “Trading Out of the Global Food Crisis? The World Trade Organization and the Geopolitics of Food

Security.” P.335

83 Margulis. P.333 84 Margulis.

85 Rieff, The Reproach of Hunger.

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4

South

Korea

– Developing Into Food Insecurity

The following chapter shows this in the case study of Food insecure South Korea. South Korea accessed the WTO as a developing country and evolved into Asia’s fourth-largest economy, recently granting itself a ‘developed country’ status.87 South Korea is often depicted as Asian

success story and was praised to be an “East Asian Miracle”.88

…ll l

89

Yet, although trade might have resulted in increased well-being of a part of the South Korean population, the effects of liberalisation in agricultural policies have severe implications for the country’s food security. Under WTO pressure the government has eliminated agricultural and livestock restrictions for the sake of industrial growth.90 Consequently, South Korea has a highly

vulnerable food system both in terms of production and consumption.91 This chapter studies

South Korean food security to reveal how increased purchasing power does not result in in-creased food security. Lastly, this case study demonstrates how western representations of de-velopment; studied in postcolonial theories and economic dependencies; studied in Dependency theory, continue to be relevant in the context of conceptualisation of food security. In addition this case study aims to illustrate how these perceived realities seemingly enforce one another.

4.1 South Korean agricultural Dependency

South Korea has been member of the WTO ever since its foundation in 1995 resulting in the opening of the Korean agricultural market. Together with other developing countries South Korea placed great emphasis on the need to support domestic production in order to promote food security.92 In spite of South Korean efforts to stimulate domestic production, nowadays

processes from seed to the supermarket are in hands of corporate food systems and little is left from South Korea’s grain self-sufficiency.93 From a 70 percent self-sufficiency in the mid–

1970s, a mere 20 percent remained. Economic dependency of less developed countries on

87 “South Korea to Give up Developing Country Status in WTO Talks,” Reuters, October 25, 2019,

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-trade-wto-idUSKBN1X401W.

88 William McCord, “Explaining the East Asian ‘Miracle,’” The National Interest, no. 16 (1989): 74–82.

89 Charles E. Barone, “Dependency, Marxist Theory, and Salvaging the Idea of Capitalism in South Korea,” Review

of Radical Political Economics 15, no. 1 (March 1, 1983): 43–67. P1

90 Albert Park, “The Politics of Designing Agrarian Affairs in South Korea,” March 20, 2019. P.5

91 Layne Hartsell and Chul-Kyoo Kim, “Food Sovereignty and Food Politics in South Korea,” in Global Civil Society

2011: Globality and the Absence of Justice, ed. Helmut Anheier et al., Global Civil Society Yearbook (London:

Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2011), 128–32. p.128

92 Gonzalez, “Institutionalizing Inequality.” p.451

93 Sukjong Hong and Fuzhi Cheng, Chapter Fourteen. Trade Liberalization in South Korea’s Rice Sector: Some Policy

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developed countries is actually proven to be the result of free trade94 South Korean agricultural

products were not competitive enough to enter the global agricultural world market. Further-more, local farmers are no longer capable of making their living off of farming. In consequence, the local agricultural sector is unable to meet the demand for food which results in an ever increasing dependency on large amounts of food imports.95

This makes South Korea extremely reliant on Developed Countries, mostly the US, for food imports.96 It is this high dependency on the global market that brought about the 2008 food

crisis in South Korea.97 An illustrative example of this is the increase in the price of ‘raymon’

which in turn severely hurt the poor since Ramyon forms an essential staple food for low income families. Likewise, different types of noodles rose drastically in price affecting not merely the poor but also general working class.98 This demonstrates how free and liberalised trade in WTO

policies accounts for increased susceptibility to crisis affecting the human right to food. There-for the South Korean consumer also notices that far from improving food security, trade liber-alization in agriculture has worsened it. “That is to say, the more agricultural–trade dependency grows, the more food insecurity grows”99

South Korea might call itself a developed country but the complete neo-liberalisation of its country’s agricultural sector comes at high costs. The commercialization of agriculture gener-ates uncertainties in access to food as food has become subject to global circulation. The high ‘food dependency’ of Koreans on the global market, especially on the US, is the main driver of the food crisis in Korea. Although global food crisis in Korea was not as merciless as in India or Africa, it demonstrates patterns equal to countries in other areas of the world where neoliberal agricultural systems have been imposed or perhaps forced. 100

94 Ka Yi Fung, “How Economic Dependency Was Created Through the WTO: A Case Study of South Korea,” Journal

of Developing Societies 33, no. 4 (December 1, 2017): 469–87. P.1

95 Fung. 96 Fung.

97 Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society (Routledge, 2012). 98 Chul-Kyoo, “The Global Food Crisis and Food Sovereignty in South Korea.”

99 Gerardo Otero et al., “Food Security, Obesity, and Inequality: Measuring the Risk of Exposure to the Neoliberal

Diet,” Journal of Agrarian Change 18, no. 3 (2018): 536–54.p.541

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4.2 Depeasantization in South Korea

Another result of WTO agricultural policies which requires special attention is the profound impact these policies had on rural communities. Farmer population in South Korea has de-creased drastically from 50 percent in the 1970s to 7 percent (or below) in the 2010s, and more than one-fourth of farmland has disappeared.101 This de-peasantization is not simply a threat to

self-sufficiency or harmful to food security, it has many implications. De peasantization also means the vanishing of modes of production and forces rural communities into urbanization empowered by global flows of capital.102 Peasantry also represents a way of life and is inherent to traditional culture. Global justice activist Vandana Shiva describes this very clearly "Under globalization, the farmer is losing her/his social, cultural, economic identity as a producer. A farmer is now a 'consumer' of costly seeds and costly chemicals sold by powerful global corpo-rations through powerful landlords and money lenders locally’. In the larger context of neolib-eral policies farmers become displaced or marginalized and ‘farmer suicides’ have become an universal phenomenon.103l104

A South Korea, Lee Kyung a farmer and law maker in Cancun who was holding a banner that read ‘WTO Kills Framers’ committed suicide against WTO policy. Lee was the Former presi-dent of the Korean National Future Farmers and Fisherman Association an agricultural lobby-ing group105 Lee’s action, according to his suicide statement, signified the role of the WTO in

the ‘‘killing’’ of peasants and farmers in Korea and elsewhere.106 "Perhaps European and even

urban South Koreans won't be able to understand why Lee killed himself, but that is because they don't understand the reality of Korean farmers,"107 Farm movement organizations and de-mocracy movement allies in South Korea framed their regime challenge in the minjung (mean-ing, ‘masses or common people’) political-ideological terms. Peasants or farmers, in particular, were seen as authentic bearers of true Korean culture and, as a result, held a privileged position

101 Byeong - Seon Yoon, Won - KyuSong and Hae-jin Lee, “The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in South Korea.” 102 Sallie Yea, “The Culture and Politics of Resistance in South Korea,” Futures 31, no. 2 (March 1, 1999): 221–34. 103 R. S. Deshpande and Saroj Arora, Agrarian Crisis and Farmer Suicides (SAGE Publishing India, 2010).p. 104 P. B. Behere and M. C. Bhise, “Farmers’ Suicide: Across Culture,” Indian Journal of Psychiatry 51, no. 4 (2009):

242–43.

105 Deshpande and Arora, Agrarian Crisis and Farmer Suicides.

106 Burmeister and Choi, “Food Sovereignty Movement Activism in South Korea.”p

107 “What Drove a Korean Farmer to Kill Himself in Cancun?,” the Guardian, September 16, 2003,

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within minjung ideology.108 One fundamental tenet of minjung campaign is to stop the

exploi-tation of the masses, namely farmers and workers.109

Besides the severe implications neoliberalist policies had for farmers, South Korea is facing the difficult challenge of sustaining its rice market. South Korean Sorori rice is featured in nation-alist discourses which assumes that the Korean people have fixed and securely traceable cultural traits.110 A major South Korean newspaper stated; ‘rice was the basis of life in the Korean

pen-insula over 15,000 years. Sedentary agricultural societies started and became the roots of culture that is based on communities. It is hardly deniable that rice is the protoplasm of our bodies and spirit of our culture’111 The cultivation of rice has been central to South Korean culture and

society for centuries. Following the signing of the WTO accords, Korea faced increasing pres-sures to open these agricultural markets. This has been a long, protracted process, with the last bastion of domestic food self-sufficiency, the rice market, completely opened in 2014.112

4.3 South Korea - Dependency and Postcolonialism

South Korean industrialized ‘neoliberal development’ has been praised, nonetheless, this liber-alisation comes at high costs of its own food security as it has dismantled farmers livelihoods and leads to vanishing traditional cultures. For this reason, this section argues how the depend-ency and postcolonialism should be read alongside each other.

Trade liberalisation in South Korea represents how traditional sectors are opened up to interna-tional markets as process of development. Like dependency theorist Gunther Frank argued, The traditional sector is ‘underdeveloped’ because it has lacked such exposure to the outside capi-talist world; but it can be modernised through the diffusion of ‘capital, institutions, values’.113

The exposure to the capitalist world has led South Korea to finds itself on an “economic tread-mill whereby export production is key to keep pace with increasingly expensive manufactured imports.”114 Therefore, Dependency theorists have argued thatSeoul-style growth is said to be

growth without development, oriented toward the outside rather than the inside, unable to raise living standards and meet basic needs.115

108 Burmeister and Choi, “Food Sovereignty Movement Activism in South Korea.” p.250 109 Burmeister and Choi. p.250

110 Margaret Bruchac, Siobhan Hart, and H. Martin Wobst, Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader on Decolonization

(Routledge, 2016). 307

111 B.C. Kwak, “Sorori Byeopssi [Sorori Rice],” Hankyoreh Sinmun, 2005. P 26

112 Burmeister and Choi, “Food Sovereignty Movement Activism in South Korea.” 249 113 Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America.

114 Gonzalez, “Institutionalizing Inequality.” P.431

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Western discourse on development determines, to a great extent, how the concept of food se-curity is framed. In line with postcolonial thought one could apply Bhambra’s criticism116 of the overtly Eurocentric view on development; Discourse of development is often characterized by the separation between a traditional agrarian past from a modern, termed as developed, in-dustrial present. In the context of food security one can consider the traditional livelihoods and non-western forms of community and production in the developing world represent a “past”. The modern posited ideal societal organisation that originated in a ‘European space’ and then diffuses to incorporate the non-western world.117

As also argues in extension of her argument, this structure is an important factor to the con-ceptual dilemma that has shaped social scientific engagements with the global South up to the present.118 Therefore, the Food security discourse can be subjected to a similar dichotomic rep-resentation; Neo-liberal policies and its agricultural trade models are considered modern and developed and hence are presented as ‘the way out of food insecurity’. Simultaneously, tradi-tional agricultural living forms represent a “past” practice in need of development. As a result of this representation neoliberal agricultural policies have led to the collapse of domestic agri-culture sacrificing the interests of farmers and marginalizing traditional agri-cultures. In addition it has depopulated the countryside; and threatened cultural heritages tied to local cuisines and rural life.119 From this perspective, South Korea’s current circumstances are similar to that

faced by large numbers of small farmers around the globe. Correspondingly, we detect that this deep structure is expressive of the foundational postcolonial theory of Said’s Orientalism. He argues how the essence of social knowledge on non-western societies is ‘the ineradicable dis-tinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority’120

In conclusion of this chapter the complementary link between dependency theory and postcolo-nialism is laid out; The discursive framing of food security exemplifies how western bourn neoliberalism is represented as the way out of food insecurity. Food security in the WTO is rather a concept that has been subjected to western hegemonic domination. The historical

116 Gurminder K. Bhambra, Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination (Basingstoke,

Hampshire ; Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

117 Alf Gunvald Nilsen, “Power, Resistance and Development in the Global South: Notes Towards a Critical

Re-search Agenda,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 29, no. 3 (September 2016): 269–87. 295

118 Gurminder K. Bhambra, Connected Sociologies (London ; Bloomsbury, 2014). p.10-12 119 Burmeister and Choi, “Food Sovereignty Movement Activism in South Korea.” P.251 120 Edward, Orientalism.p. 42

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dominance of WTO’s ‘food security’ discourse exemplifies western imposed neoliberalism on non-western societies. As a result, food security discourse historically favoured western devel-oped nations and the advocacy of neoliberalism in agriculture trade results in high levels of agricultural dependency. The resultant agricultural dependency of developing countries on de-veloping ones is therefore built on an inequality that finds its origins in the colonial era. Therefor postcolonial critiques of western structures of knowledge and power that assume west-ern cultural superiority should be complemented with dependency theory’s practical views on the dependencies created through neoliberalism.

South Korean agriculture demonstrates the counter effectiveness of the neoliberal conceptual-ization ‘food security’. Although praised to have developed into ‘Asian tiger’, not many acknowledge how this western, neoliberal view, of development has had severe and irreversible implications for its food self-sufficiency. 121122 In addition, western ideas of development in

agriculture cause the marginalisation of traditional cultures and livelihoods. These neoliberal policies are maintained through food security discourses within the WTO which continuously proclaim that neoliberalism in agriculture will result in food security. Therefore analysing ne-oliberal agricultural policies in South Korea demonstrates that dependency theory and postcolo-nialism meet in this western imposed ‘food security’ which is in fact a feigned security.

121 Nik Heynen et al., Neoliberal Environments: False Promises and Unnatural Consequences (Routledge, 2007).

p.134

122 Bernhard Seliger, The Shrimp That Became a Tiger : Transformation Theory and Korea’s Rise after the Asian

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Conclusion

This thesis demonstrates how food insecurity is not caused by a global food scarcity or a lack of food. Rather, people go hungry because of economic inequalities that prevent them from obtaining food. Unequal trade liberalisation in agriculture reduced developing countries self-sufficiency. The WTO concept of ‘food security’ is trade oriented and prescribes increasing purchasing power as way out of food insecurity. This culminates into the reduction of the con-cept of food security as ‘The ability to buy food’.

In Summation, food security is everything but an “unproblematic policy term”. The ‘trade ori-ented food security’ discourse, dominant in the WTO, neglects its proper role in causing prob-lems of food security. Furthermore, the dominant neoliberal discourse obscures persisting ine-qualities and increased susceptibility to food crisis through trade liberalisation.

The trade oriented conceptualization benefitted the interests of agricultural hegemons and laid the foundation for current food inequalities that persists globally. These trade distorting policies find their genesis in colonialism meaning that agriculture in the developing world remains sub-jected to economic cultural and political penetration.123 Although power relations might have

shifted, the trade oriented discourse on food security created food dependencies that continue to persist today.

This thesis aimed to argue in line with postcolonial theory and dependency theory that; through analysing historical contexts in which food security was framed in the WTO, it becomes possi-ble to trace present inequities in the often confusing landscape of contemporary economics, politics and culture. These agricultural inequalities can only be challenged when opening the intellectual and political space for resistance to dominant regimes of truth and the emancipation of marginalised forms of knowledge.124 Considering, prospects of increasing trade based

agri-culture resulting in ever greater food insecurities, alternative framings of food security are of highly importance. Challenging the dominant discourse of food security is not only of interest to the developing world but to everyone dependent of neoliberal visions on organizing produc-tion, community and life in general.

123 Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism. P 15

124 SRDJAN VUCETIC, “Genealogy as a Research Tool in International Relations,” Review of International Studies

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