Global Policy Forum

Dominic Nutt *

While protecting its domestic producers, the US is pressing Africa to open its markets - and driving Mali's crucial cotton industry into the ground.

President George Bush's much-vaunted visit to Africa will have little tangible affect on the impoverished people who make up the majority of the continent's population. While press briefings concentrated on Washington's "generosity" in handing over $15bn (í‚£9.3bn) to Africa to tackle HIV/AIDS, no mention has been made of Bush's trade policy which is, in part, responsible for keeping many millions of Africans mired in the swamp of poverty.

Bush is a two-faced free-trader. He places massive pressure on weak countries to open their markets to American goods, threatening to reduce aid and support if they don't. Yet as they pull down the protective barriers which support their own fragile markets, the president pumps in massive subsidies to American industries.

Cotton is a case in point. The US government currently pays its own cotton barons $3.4bn in subsidies - a lot more than it gives in aid to the whole of Africa. American farmers now receive 70 cents per pound of cotton. These subsidies encourage the US cotton industry to over-produce. As supply increases, the world price drops - directly affecting African farmers. Furthermore, the handouts mean Americans can sell their cotton at artificially low prices - undercutting their African competitors, both on the international market and even in their own countries.

Cotton is Mali's second most important export, and thousands depend upon it for their survival. But cotton farmers in the west African state are being crushed. Unlike the US, Mali is forbidden from supporting its cotton industry - conditions attached to its loans by the IMF and World Bank would prevent it from doing so. Its farmers must meet the full impact of the falling world price themselves. In 2002 they received just 11 cents per pound for their cotton, two cents less than in 2001.

They are now receiving less for their cotton than they invest in producing it. Not surprisingly they are worried. Mali cotton farmer Bakary Diarra told Christian Aid that he fears not being able to buy clothes for his family, and expects to have to sell some cattle to survive. That would be the start of a serious downward spiral.

Poor rains, Bakary Diarra explained, have exacerbated the catastrophe. "If we don't earn money from cotton we won't be able to buy food," he said. "If any of our family members fall ill we won't be able to take care of them. If any of our vehicles need repairing we won't be able to do this." If that weren't bad enough, the farmers will not get a fair price for what they do produce. Globally, cotton is in trouble: the world price has fallen by a staggering 66% since 1995. Even so, the quality of Mali's cotton - which is all hand-picked - means it ought to corner a decent share of the market. The way things are at present it hasn't a chance. To add to the injustice, Malian cotton farmers actually produce cotton more efficiently and more cheaply than their US counterparts. If the subsidies were removed, the US farmers would be the ones who couldn't compete.

While visiting a ginning factory at Fana, in Mali, a Christian Aid team saw 6,000 tons of the previous year's cotton stacked high on pallets. It was there, they were told, because transport prices had been pushed up by conflict in the bordering Ivory Coast, so that the cost of moving the cotton now exceeded the price the cotton would attract.

There are no easy answers. Many Malians depend on cotton, and changing to another crop cannot be done overnight. In any case, the soil would not suit most alternatives. Without an end to subsidies - such as those paid to cotton producers in the US or the massive bonuses European farmers get for over-producing under the Common Agricultural Policy, African farmers will never be able to compete.

What is needed is a little "unfair trade". Poor countries should be allowed to support their own farmers, while being given free access to the markets of the rich world. It's not such a radical idea - many first world countries protected their own markets while their new industries were growing. And the US is doing it to this day - slapping tariffs on steel imports and, of course, subsidising its own farmers, as does the EU. No one in Europe or the US is likely to starve if Africa protects its own farmers. Yet in a continent beset by an AIDS pandemic, crippled by debt and hit by natural disasters, being forced to open up its markets has been another major blow.

Rudolf Amenga-Etego, from the Integrated Social Development Centre, a thinktank based in Accra, Ghana, said that free trade does not necessarily mean fair trade. "If countries like Ghana have to open up their markets to foreign competition in return for more open markets in Europe and North America, then it will be a recipe for famine and increased poverty. "International trade rules need to be flexible so that we can protect our own essential industries and open up our markets at our own pace," he said.

A level playing field is all well and good - if the competitors are well matched. But a Ghanian saying sums up the reality rather well: Trade between Africa and the west is like a giraffe and an antelope competing for the best fruit at the top of a tree. You can make the ground level beneath their feet, but the contest will still be unfair.

About the Author: Dominic Nutt is an emergencies officer for Christian Aid.

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