April 18, 2016

Dear Member of Congress,

We write to you as development, faith-based and sustainable agriculture organizations concerned about the potential impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on food security and sustainable development in the member countries and around the world. Many of us work closely with partners in developing countries and have witnessed the devastating impacts of previous free trade agreements on small-scale farmers and their communities. We urge you to reject the TPP.

The TPP would expand many of the worst features of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Under NAFTA, more than two million Mexican farmers were driven from their lands after a dramatic increase in dumped corn imports from the United States. NAFTA has led to increasing corporate concentration in agricultural production, leaving farmers with fewer options of where to buy and sell goods and a decline in the number of family farmers in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The TPP would replicate those problems, opening fragile markets for basic grains and other foods even further.

The TPP also requires countries to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants 1991 (UPOV-91), an international treaty protecting plant breeders. UPOV-91 requires 20 to 25 years of intellectual property protection to be provided for all plant varieties. It stops farmers and breeders from saving and exchanging protected seeds, common practices of farmers in many countries around the world. Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico and New Zealand have not yet ratified UPOV-91, but will be required to do so under TPP—as will any country who may join the TPP in the future.

In general, the TPP would lock member countries into a path that has proven to be unsustainable and unsupportable. Rather than encouraging knowledge sharing and local control, the TPP would enshrine the UPOV-91 system. Rather than adopting a precautionary approach to hazardous chemicals and novel genetic modification, TPP’s provisions on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards would judge food, plant and chemical safety based on scientific studies provided by industry and not subject to scientific peer review. Provisions in the Annex on Agricultural Biotechnology in TPP’s chapter on National Treatment and Market Access would impose new rules on how countries assess Low Level Presence of GMOs and contaminants in imports—all designed to facilitate trade. In contrast to the binding rules on these issues, hortatory language in the chapter on Development acknowledges the importance of encouraging inclusive growth, but only commits to establish a committee to discuss it.