May 6, 2008 (LPAC)--A leader of Canadian wheat growers in Saskatchewan, one of the centers of world wheat production, has responded to the LPAC "Kill the WTO" mobilization, by pointing out specific past programs that can provide ways that farming capacity can be saved, while we halt the ruinous practices of biofuels and cash-cropping. We are facing a transition period, during which we want to provide emergency food relief, and at the same time, build up agriculture in places ground down under free trade. He recommends looking at the 1962-1964 "World Wheat Agreement," which had spelled out in it food aid conventions, and trade conventions, under which nations could work out specific arrangements of mutual benefit. The World Wheat Agreement was subsequently eliminated under the advent of the free trade era.

This farm leader also adamantly supports retaining the few national food and crop boards that exist around the world, such as the Canadian Wheat Board, and supports the principle of re-establishing national-interest farm and food boards.

In Argentina now, for example, a bill has been introduced into the legislature for a national agriculture marketing board. It is the proposal of Deputy Alberto Cantero Gutierez, head of the Agriculture Commission in the Lower House of the Congress, and debate has begun. Argentina was home to a famous state agency, the IAPI, set up in 1946 by President Juan Domingo Peron, which established natonal control over the entire farm output marketing process. This was eliminated in 1955, when Peron was ousted.

In Mexico, similar state agencies, and the national food board, Conasupo, were banned under NAFTA.