Farmers’ groups from the European Union, Japan and Canada said on Monday they are very worried about the direction in which talks on bringing down global trade barriers are heading.
Representatives of a coalition of farmers’ federations said after a meeting with World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief negotiator Shotaro Oshima that their concerns focus on the drive for market access by bringing down tariffs.
”We told him we were not opposed to the progress of the negotiations, but certainly not with the text on agriculture,” Jean-Michel Lemetayer, vice-president of the Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the EU, said afterwards.
Lemetayer told journalists that each country must be able to ensure that farming focuses on its domestic market as a priority.
”The ground that we cultivate cannot be delocalised,” he said.
The draft compromise text Oshima released to WTO member states on July 16 calls for the elimination of export subsidies on agriculture and cuts in import tariffs.
The 147 member states are due to meet at a ruling WTO General Council meeting from Tuesday to try to reach an agreement by the end of the week on new guidelines that would galvanise troubled global trade talks.
In a letter to Oshima, Lemetayer’s group, Japan’s Ja Zenchu and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture said they are ”particularly worried by the development of discussions on market access”.
They said there is a need for ”sufficient flexibility” to allow farmers ”to meet society’s food security and rural concerns for sensitive products”.
”Similarly, it must be ensured that the competitive position of farmers who incur high costs in order to meet society’s concerns about food safety, the environment and animal welfare is not undermined by imports which do not meet the same standards,” the letter added.
The groups noted that there has been ”no progress” at the WTO on how to address non-trade concerns.
EU ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday called for a better balance in several key points of the WTO draft compromise.
Lemetayer, who also heads the main French Farmers’ Union, said he hopes the EU will draw up a relatively broad list of sensitive products that could benefit from smaller import tariff cuts, thereby retaining some protection.
”At world prices, there are few European farmers who would be able to resist,” he said, adding that EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy has made a big concession by putting all export subsidies on the negotiating table at the WTO.
Lemetayer argued that Oshima’s proposal offers little in return to the EU. Provisions for concessions on export credits, which would come mainly from the United States, are relatively weak, he added.
Meanwhile, pressure groups defending poor countries slammed the WTO’s draft framework on Monday, saying it is biased in favour of wealthy trading superpowers such as the EU and US.
”Rich countries must get their heads out of the sand and fulfil their promises. They have been blocking progress towards reform of global trade and they alone have the power to unlock the round,” said Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam International’s Geneva office.
The British-based group Action Aid accused rich countries in a statement of ”continuing to bribe, bully and threaten developing countries”.
Focus on Global South argued in a report that no progress has been made on proposals to further break down barriers on non-agricultural products, which developing countries already rejected last year, while only ”lip service” has been paid to other concerns of poor countries.
”There is only one thing that developing country governments can do with the proposed July framework: dump it,” the Third World support group added. — Sapa-AFP