No image available
/ 19 September 2007

The perils of free trade in agriculture

It’s the kind of unfair situation that makes poorer nations wonder where the payoff is with free trade: demand for coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton and sugar — which is what many such countries have to offer the world — has risen. Prices paid in the supermarket have risen. Yet the share paid to the farmers who grow these basic agricultural commodities has fallen.