WTO Round Threatens Food, Nature Say Some Farmers

GENEVA-(Reuters)--Farmers from Europe, Africa, Asia and Canada warned the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Tuesday that a trade deal being negotiated this week could ruin small farmers, harm the environment and increase hunger.

On the second day of a week of crunch talks seeking a breakthrough to rescue the 'Doha' trade liberalization round, groups representing small-scale farmers told WTO chief Pascal Lamy the proposals were dangerous and unacceptable.

"Further trade liberalization will benefit large-scale corporate farming and multinational traders at the expense of small-scale, vulnerable farmers, hindering agricultural and rural development in countries which need it most," the farm groups said in a joint declaration handed to Lamy.

The Doha round aims, among other things, to open markets for farm exports from developing countries and limit the huge subsidies paid to farmers in Europe and North America which skew the market against agriculture in the developing world.

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WTO Issues New Farm, Industry Texts

GENEVA-(Reuters)--World Trade Organization mediators circulated new negotiating texts on Thursday that will serve as the blueprint for an outline deal in the WTO's long-running Doha round, trade officials said.

They will form the basis for discussions when ministers meet in Geneva in the week of July 21 to try to agree the outlines of a Doha deal, named for negotiations launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001 to free up world trade.

"These revised texts set the stage for a decisive moment in the Doha round," WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said.

"A deal to open trade in agriculture and goods means more growth, better prospects for development and a more stable and predictable trading system. We must not let this opportunity slip through our fingers," he said in a statement.

Lamy, a former European Union (EU) trade chief, called the make-or-break meeting, which is the last opportunity to reach a deal before change in the U.S. administration in January 2009 that could see the talks put on ice for years.

In Brussels, the European Commission said on Thursday it welcomed positive steps made in the new negotiating texts but said that "important gaps" still needed to be bridged.

"We are committed to this negotiation, but we need serious efforts from our negotiating partners to reach a balanced agreement," a spokesman for European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said in a statement.

In Washington, U.S. trade representative spokeswoman Gretchen Hamel said that the Bush administration would be reviewing the texts in coming days.

But the United States said it was time leading developing countries made market-opening offers "commensurate with their increasing participation and role in the world economy".

Both mediators, New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer for agriculture, and Canadian ambassador Don Stephenson for industry, told reporters they hoped to narrow the gaps further next week before ministers arrive.

Falconer said he was confident agreement could be reached reconciling the interests of tropical product exporters in Latin America with less developed growers in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries seeking to maintain their preferential access to the European Union.

RULES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Trade experts say a deal is needed to counter rising protectionist pressures that threaten prosperity, and would be a shot in the arm for the ailing world economy.

The aim is to rewrite the rules of world trade, last codified in 1994, for the 21st century and remove distortions that developing countries say put them at a disadvantage.

Agreement on agriculture and industrial goods -- the most sensitive chapters -- could open the way for deals in other areas such as services like banking and telecoms as well as trade rules on subsidies and unfairly priced imports.

A deal would see rich countries like the United States, Japan and the EU's members open up their food markets by reducing protection for their farmers.

In return they will get greater access to developing country markets for industrial goods and services, especially in emerging nations like India, Brazil, China and South Africa.

Any outline deal by ministers will be followed by months of detailed work translating it to individual goods and services, before ministers can sign off on a final agreement.

Over the past 10 months negotiators have edged closer on a range of technical issues, mainly in agriculture, but differences between rich and poor countries remain wide, particularly in industrial goods, and the services talks have not moved for nearly three years.

The texts issued by mediators on Thursday made no changes to current proposed ranges for tariff and subsidy cuts for both agriculture and industrial goods -- a political decision that only ministers can take.

The new farm text set a tariff cap of 100 percent for developed countries -- a key demand of poor countries -- as part of complex technical arrangements, still under negotiation, of how countries shield sensitive farm products from tariff cuts.

It also refined proposals for developing countries to shield their farm sectors from sudden import surges or price collapses, and promote food and livelihood security and rural development.

In industry the paper responded to rich-country concerns that new WTO members such as China were getting too long to implement any tariff cuts. China would now have up to 14 years.

The industrial goods text reaffirmed that developing countries should not use waivers to tariff cuts to shield entire sectors from market opening, and proposed that ministers should negotiate a minimum number of tariff lines or percentage of imports in each sector that would be subject to full cuts.

WTO Chief: Subsidies Contribute to Rising Food Prices

Production subsidies lower food prices. They do not raise them.

If the U.S. ceased farm payments, the EU would keep its policies, and developing countries would not produce enough food to fill global demand. THEN, food prices would rise.

When talking about rising food prices, let's not forget about the skyrocketing price of crude oil (transportation expense) and labor.
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BRUSSELS, Belgium-(AP)--The WTO chief says European and American farm subsidies are partly responsible for high food prices because they undermine farming in developing countries.

World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy said Thursday the food supply is not growing fast enough — especially in poorer nations that still have large areas of land that could be farmed.

But he said the countries' capacity to grow food has been damaged by a lack of investment, as well as farm subsidies in rich nations that allow the EU and U.S. to export food cheaply to developing countries.

Lamy says this helped restrict and shrink the production capacity of developing countries.

He was speaking at a food crisis conference at the European Parliament in Brussels.