By joining the WTO, developing countries give up their power to impose conditions on the entry of foreign companies. This liberalization of investment has enabled cheaper goods and services to swamp southern markets, often replacing what is locally made. Local operators are either wiped out by the competition or taken over, leading to unprecedented retrenchment and dislocation. One of the authors, Dr. Vandana Shiva of India's Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology, considers global free trade in food and agriculture to be the world's biggest refugee creation program. India, for example, has seen a shift from production of food crops to cotton for export.
Profits are high, but so too are the costs.
Pesticide use has increased. Traditionally, farmers relied upon open-pollenated seed which could be saved and reused, but corporations demand hybrid seed ,which must be purchased annually. These costs can only be met by taking out high interest loans from the same companies that sell the hybrid seed and pesticides. Too many soon find themselves buried under the weight of unpayable debt. My principal criticism of this text is that it is somewhat repetitive and does not give sufficient attention to the sorts of issues raised by Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree.