South Korea is for us a country that is at the forefront of its technological development. What weight does the crop have? What forces did they exert?

7 per cent of the population of South Korea is peasant. It is not a very large proportion, therefore very small, and therefore for the government we are a zero on the left. They trample on us, they trample on us, they have nothing but free trade in their heads. We know what that entails, what is going to harm us and the small labourers of the future, and as trade unions and as people, we fight hard against policies that can mortgage our future.

What is your future for free trade?

At a time when the agreements with Europe are in place and are close to the agreement with the United States, the government only sells to the Korean people the benefits of free trade. So people don't realize that free trade is like an apple that's shining on the outside but rotting on the inside. It seems fair, effective, fruitful, sweet, but then ... In the agreement with the United States, for example, people do not realize that international law is going to be put above Korean law and that is detrimental to the smallest. The Koreans who have money will make more money, but what is going to happen to others? The differences are only going to be increases and we're not going to see a penny out there. For example, in the area of social security, the Korean Government is currently covering everyone, but the United States wants to take us to a private health system. How will the farmer who rushes to eat pay for that insurance policy? Concluding agreements with a giant force such as the United States is to overthrow all the achievement it has achieved so far.

If small farmers get the right thing to eat, they'll have trouble taking over the land, don't they?

The law obliges the landlord to farm the land. In practice, however, most owners are speculators who live in the city. They are not able to distinguish a plague from a scylla, but they are intended to be labourers, to disappoint the law and to rent their land to real farmers. They know very well that most farmers are in short supply of land and that they need more land to earn a wage. Let us think that only 30% of farmers work entirely on their land. Little by little the price of the land is rising, the government is closing its eyes, and as we know how to do it is to work the land, we are condemned to be devoured. When will the government realise that with the red carpet speculators are scraping their roof? Only 26% of the food we consume in Korea is produced by us, we import everything else. Don't you realize it's a huge weakness?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) will be more comfortable with your government than with you.

If you look at how things do those who take advantage of free trade, you realize that they go from barbarity to stupidity. The United States, or anyone with the ability and power to move yarns, heats their pockets, stomping around the world, and of course, the hunger of the big fish is always paid by the little one. It's not a question of nationality, it's a question of size. Small American farmers also do not benefit from MMA practices. We are not the only ones who are against MMA, all the small farmers in the world are against MMA!

However, you have been the ones who have denounced the hottest MMAs, who witnessed the actions of Cancun and Hong Kong.

In 2003, taking advantage of a summit held at MMA in Cancun, our colleague Lee was mad to denounce that the MMA had set us on the road to cruel, murderous and undemocratic globalisation. Two years later, at the 6th MMA summit in Hong Kong, 900 people from the KPL went to fight MMA, many of them submerged in the icy waters of the port of Hong Kong to remember that the MMA plunges us. They're powerful actions, but don't think that people's demands and struggles just emerge. People feel the need to do what they do because whistleblowers have a direct influence on their lives. We do it because it comes inside, not to dazzle the gallery. We know that the strength of KPL is to catalyse those forces. The system and the situation have led us, forced us, to fight harder. What should you do when you see the future stealing, be OK in the present? It is clear to us that the only way to deal with the WTO is to boost food sovereignty, and that is where we are, because ours is not just a cry, we also provide solutions.

What makes you think that farmers in Korea, Euskal Herria or Mexico, despite living in very different realities, have the same concerns and wounds?

If all the farmers who do not work in industrial farming want to deal with the monsters, we have no choice but to unite. For example, Koreans have helped us a lot to look at the world, to see that other people were fighting hard, not despair, not falling into fatalism. As in the fighting in Cancun or Hong Kong, it is beautiful to see small farmers from all over the world fighting for a better future. It's beautiful not to feel alone on the desert journey. Those who move the MMA have no regard for the small, but by joining the shelves we can form a powerful counterweight. If we take them together, we too can squeeze them. In the game of power relations, the richest do not always win. Food sovereignty is the north, and when we manage to internationalize it, the wind will change course, because it is one thing that each of us attacks its own government, and another that weaves those forces, puts them on the net and faces the neoliberal system.

Not only the higher authorities, but also consumers have a lot to say.

The first premise is to wage war on the WTO and on free trade so that the small crop can survive. In this respect, within the sovereignty of food we will have to put another model of trade in place. We must not forget that climate change can lead to food problems and that global authorities have to change the chip to deal with it. On the contrary, not everything is in the hands of the authorities, but the whole of society must be involved in the solution. Farmers, authorities and consumers are all meeting together. When we all change, the solutions will begin to come. It is time to forget the immediate benefits and to tackle the problem from the branches.

It will not be easy in these times when governments dance to the beat of the multinationals.

I know the case of Korea and it is very illustrative. The Government does not look at all Koreans. The only aim is to live better those who have already lived well. They want to conclude free trade agreements, multiply the impact of the WTO, seduce the multinationals... It is therefore obvious in which pocket the money that is taken out of there is hidden. It is not a correct bribe, but for there to be business, all links must have an interest and compensation. Let us not deceive ourselves, with free trade, multinationals command more than governments.