SUAREZ:  Today there are people sitting watching us talk in Oregon, Michigan, Florida, New Hampshire and they’re sitting there and saying this is all very interesting for me to know, but really it’s a problem in Ebo Land, really it’s a problem in Karnatica.  What does this have to do with me?  I’m not going to start changing the world when I head to my local super market and buy the rice and fruits and vegetables and meat that I’m going to buy for the next week’s marketing.  Where do I fit in all of this?

ARIGBEDE:  I think they fit precisely in the picture.  The world is becoming a cliché now.  So it’s a small village.  That’s not what I mean here.  We’re all so intricately linked that what you do here, if you damage the environment here, it impacts on Nigeria, it impacts on India.  And unless we begin to see ourselves lost as  blind consumers that we have been turned into by the Western system and saying you are consumers so you just consume and look for more consumption, alright?  But that you are co-creators with God in a garden that was made ever more beautiful.  That sounds religious, but then who cares?  The important thing is to get the issue quite clear that why are we here if not to change and improve the conditions that we made.

Now, if we accept that and we recognize the linkages, you would see that what happens in my little village concerns you here in Washington and what happens in Washington concerns us there.  I mean if you are subsidizing agriculture and dumping subsidized products on us, you destroy our markets.  Alright?  So let us get to that point that those who are listening to us hopefully would join the dream today -- that we can make a new world.  We have to make it together.  We’re not making it just for the USA or for Africa or for India.  We have to make it as one human race and if we get to that point, everybody will find a task for themselves in that set up.  I can see how young people in America here will be extremely useful to the work that young people in Nigeria are doing to advance food sovereignty, to remove this unacceptable hunger that plagues the world, even in the U.S. here.  It is not as if there are no people who are hungry!

So the issue is how to link up as human beings and improve the world.  Already we are producing more food than we need to feed the entire population of the world now, so why is there hunger?  Lack of political will, a cultural arrogance that is imposed on us in most cases, and just pure simple ignorance of the issues.  I think the issues can be made very, very clear to our people here and we can join as one.  We have to join as one is the message that people must take away here.  And then you say within that what can I do?  I’m an engineer.  I know how to build small machines.  Do we need appropriate machines for agriculture that can be sustainable in Africa?  Who can come back in fact to teach the U.S. that simple is not necessarily simplistic, alright?  And can be very useful.  And let others know this is how I feel about that.

NARAYAN:  I agree with my colleague.  I think what’s important is a curious mind to ask basic questions in terms of where is this food that I’m eating coming from?  Where does this shirt or where do these shoes come from?  Who produced them?  And if I get them cheap and I go for a bargain which we all like, what goes to the producer?  And I think what we’re seeing is as people’s basic needs are being met, people are beginning  to understand there’s an assertion of values and ethics that’s coming back, particularly among young people but among consumers that I see at least in the West as well as in our countries.  And I think it’s that kind of questioning.  It starts with a simple question but if you follow that through, you can see how the dice is loaded against the small producer.  And that’s the beginning of change.  It’s one person that can make a difference by pulling out one statistic that shows for example either the nature of subsidies or in Mali that the total amount of USAID money going into Mali is five times less than what Mali loses on its cotton exports because of the subsidies in the U.S.  But even more simply I think thinking small is very important.  If you think about the Grameen Bank and we’re all very proud that Muhammad Yunus and his Nobel Peace Prize.  It started with $27 and a simple observation that people were paying astronomical amounts to the money lender and not getting much back so it becomes a trap.  So starting from your own society, your own location and addressing local problems and sooner or later you see the connectivity with global problems.

SUAREZ:   But the way a lot of big systems work in a country like this one with now 300 million people as of tomorrow morning, no one feels like they could stand in a WalMart or a Cosco or Sam’s Club with a packet of undershirts and say you know I would spend an extra 50 cents on this packet of undershirts if I had any faith at all that it would mean that a cotton farmer would get 30 of those 50 cents… or 40 of those 50 cents.  You are the end of a long chain of events and don’t feel like you can back engineer that chain in a way that sends that impulse back up the chain.  I would pay a nickel more for this banana.  I would pay three cents more for this cup of coffee if it meant that a coffee farmer in Honduras was going to make a couple of bucks more over the course of a week or a month.

NARAYAN:  I just want to say one thing to that.  You’re absolutely right,  and it’s to fill this gap that we have tried various ways of bringing groups together that are involved in fair trade movements. We’ve created a group which is called Global Grassroots Producers Network.  There’s lots of good work going on but it’s all isolated and not connected with each other.  And one of the big shifts that’s happening is tracing back to the origins and labeling.  So that the onus is not on the individual consumer in the West to figure out to follow that long chain but making it easier for that person.  And lack of trust in this is my money going to go back to the end producer is a justifiable one given how the production chain is structured right now.

SUAREZ:  How do you make those connections?

CLAYTON:  I want to say there are opportunities and I’m encouraged by what I see.  There’s now not enough.  I don’t suggest it is a big, big movement  but if I lift this cup and see it half full, if I looked in the cup to see if there is any water at all, and I think there is some water, some hope in the cup for making the connection between  a farmer in Mali and a farmer in the U.S. or  North Carolina, Texas.  The Farm Bill is coming up and indeed the relationship or the opportunity suggested will be the answer.  But I see individuals now recognizing that our trade rules and values and subsidies have effects on the farmers.  As a former member of Congress that has now worked with the UN I have had more time than enough to have to apologize to farmers in Mali or Burkina Faso or others that indeed when I voted for my cotton farmers in North Carolina I must say I did have the Mali farmer in mind.  That’s the honest truth.  I had my cotton farmers in North Carolina in mind.  Although I might have been one of those who voted less for subsidies but nevertheless I voted for subsidies.  I had in my mind I had my cotton farmers and their families and their struggle. 

I’m encouraged that there are groups of individuals who are now making the connection that we can no longer subsidize at the extent we are and expect for our trade to be reciprocal.  Not on moral grounds or economic grounds.  In fact if our agriculture is heavily subsidized and indeed our technology or others are not.  It is in the interest of the overall economy of the United States to reduce the subsidy.  But just on the moral grounds that we would not want to see what we are doing is doing at the detriment of other people.  I think we say to people there are opportunities as you are taking advantage of being a citizen in a democracy or being an American as I am that that also carries a responsibility and we live not only in a country that has the rights and privileges but we also live in a country that is threatened by all the threats that any other county is threatened by.  The environmental damage that goes across boundaries or the potential of Asian flu.  So if disease can indeed be transported from country to country, so can despair and hope. 

So we want to show that indeed there is a responsibility and an opportunity, not just responsibility, but opportunities to share so you get information.  That’s the beginning of it.  My colleague indicated that having a curious mind is good but I think responsibility is that we ought to find out how people live in the world because we need to know how we survive in the world and the more we understand that I just think our conscience dictates that we want a society where all people have an equal opportunity.  They have a basic right and it’s in our best interest to have that, even for food security it’s related, in my judgment, to our national security.

SUAREZ:   So back at the sites, whether people decide they are for continued subsidy of farming in the United States or against it, you want them to know what’s in that farm bill.

CLAYTON:  Yes.  Information.  Begin there.  Find out about that.  I know it’s dull stuff, but college students are out there and they are used to reading dull material, statistics, going to meetings and they can put pressure on.  This is the time.  What can they do?  They can also be involved and actually exchange with other youth across the globe.  I would just share with you that the Girl Scouts I was involved with while I was in Rome where they wrote a whole manual about sovereignty and the rights of food that now has been produced.  It is being introduced at the UN as we speak.  There are opportunities where youth groups can make that difference because they can inform themselves in doing such.  That is also information that can be shared with other youth groups across the world.

SUAREZ:  So there is something to do besides just watch the three of you tell your interesting stories and transmit your opinions?  Like what?

ARIGBEDE:  I think first of all people must avoid being individuals even here.  Because once you are acclimated you become important.  They must, therefore, come together even here and I think that’s what Eva was saying earlier on.  They must come together, identify a purpose, and pursue it together and then begin to look for information on that issue, begin to look for collateral information on other issues that are linked to it.  Begin to find allies outside of here.  Because in here you have enough to eat and obesity is your problem.  Somewhere else somebody is paying for that overeating.  If you  come together you can develop a balanced world.  And you feel better as a human being all around so you can start with your own effort, your own grouping and gain strength from that group. 

SUAREZ:  We’ll come back to some of those themes in the third hour of the program.  Guests, thank you all.  Our first hour is drawing to a close.  An hour from now the panel will return to answer your questions.  Please follow the guidelines you’ve been given.  We have operators waiting to take your questions.  Let me stress to our participants at our hundreds of sites how important your participation is to ensure a lively interactive hour.