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Jacques Berthelot : Agriculture : globalisation's Achilles' heel (2000)

This note presents Jacques Berthelot's book : "L'agriculture, talon d'Achille de la mondialisation, Clés pour un Accord agricole solidaire ". It is composed of an abstract summarising the issues tackled in the book and of extracts of the prefaces written by Jean-Marc Boussard, chief director of the INRA research institute and member of the Agriculture Academia and by José Bové, spokesman of the Peasant Confederation.
The author demonstrates that the WTO in fact supports interventionist policies that correspond to the interests of powerful countries, interests considered by bureaucrats that often have a short-term approach. He deconstructs the neo-liberal myth saying that the open market policy will result in a greater efficiency in the use of resources. This book makes clear the actual drift of agricultural policies in the majority of rich countries which do not consider food and agriculture as a mean to fulfil the needs neither take into account the interests and willingness of people.