Global Policy Forum

Businesses, Farmers Showcase Fair Trade Solutions at Upcoming WTO Ministerial

When the WTO convenes next month in Cancun, Mexico, many civic, business and farming leaders will gather at the nearby International Fair Trade Fair, to promote "Fair Trade," the rapidly growing, market-based alternative to 'Free Trade,' Ascribe News reports.

World leaders are under increasing public pressure to alleviate endemic hunger and rural poverty. According to Oxfam International, nearly 25 million coffee farmers in Latin America, Asia and Africa have seen prices fall by 70 percent in the last 5 years.

Coffee farmers, like Mohammed Ali Indris in Ethiopia, had been selling their beans below the cost of production. By joining a Fair Trade cooperative, Indris is now guaranteed $1.26 per pound of coffee beans, about three times the current world price - enough to provide food, education and health care for his family. "There is a real opportunity for the WTO and the US government to incorporate Fair Trade principles in developing new trade rules," stated Mark Ritchie, President of the Minneapolis, MN-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, one of the organizations convening the International Fair Trade Fair just minutes away from the WTO meeting. "The Fair Trade movement has flourished largely because the WTO-driven, free trade model has failed to respond to the needs of poor countries," he added.

And flourish it has. Fair Trade certified products, which guarantees fair wages to producers of coffee, chocolate, bananas and many other crafts and commodities is growing fast. Advocates see Fair Trade as a proven solution, benefiting farmers and rural communities, while meeting a growing consumer demand in the US and abroad for high quality products that respect producers, their communities and the environment. Some world leaders already agree. "Fair Trade in cocoa is increasing incomes and empowering local producers," British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated in February 2003. "It is an inspiring example of the new partnership between developing countries and the developed world."

In other news on the WTO, Dow Jones reports that farm trade liberalization must go further than that proposed by Europe or the head of the WTO if it's to be worthwhile, Australia's commodities agency said Thursday. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics (ABARA) said market access proposals put forward by the Australia-led Cairns Group and the US would deliver greater gains for wheat and course grains than the concessions presented by WTO chairman Stuart Harbinson or the EU. Analysis by ABARA suggests the Cairns Group and US market access proposals would result in a 5 percent increase in the world wheat price, and a two percent lift in the volume of world wheat trade. Only minimal increases would be achieved from the EU proposal, said ABARE executive director Brian Fisher.

The Economic Times (India) notes that World Agricultural Forum advisory board chairman James Bolger said that India, as the world's largest democracy, has the opportunity, if not the obligation, to take up the leadership role and help guide participants to a just and sustainable outcome.

Financial Express (India) reports that the TRIPs Council chairman will hold a series of meetings starting next week to sort out the contentious issue of TRIPs and Public Health. The chairman will submit his report to the General Council when it meets on August 25 so that the issue is resolved before the fifth ministerial meet of WTO at Cancun, Mexico, in September. The decision to hold the meetings had been taken by the WTO given the seriousness of the issue which had the potential of breaking talks at the Cancun ministerial, commerce ministry officials said.

The pace of Russia's progress towards WTO accession might, according to the Russian government, be accelerating, but unwillingness to move on certain key issues and the current volatile pre-election political climate may well prove to be stumbling blocks that could delay entry until 2007 or beyond, TASS reports. Meanwhile, AFX reports that World Bank managing director Shengman Zhang concluded a four-day visit to Vietnam after talks on the country's efforts to join the WTO and its poverty reduction policies. In meetings with senior government officials in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Zhang reaffirmed the World Bank's support for Vietnam's planned accession to the WTO.

The news comes as Agence France Presse reports that the US has said it strongly supports Vietnam's accession to the WTO by 2005 but has warned that the communist nation needs to do more and quicker to realize its ambitious goal.

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