Global Policy Forum

By Jeremy Smith

Salvador, Brazil - Developing nations anxious to secure a fair deal for their farm exports should be given priority at world trade talks next month despite opposition from some nations, a WTO official said on Wednesday. Agriculture ministers and officials from 34 countries from North, Central and South America opened a three-day meeting in the Brazilian city Salvador, intent upon reaching a unified negotiating stance ahead of the next round of World Trade Organisation talks, due to start on November 30 in Seattle.

Officials from host Brazil have said that all the nations represented at the meeting suffer from the restrictive tariff regime practiced by the European Union, a key market for Latin America's producers after the US market. ``These interests of developing countries should have priority but will be faced with interests of the main players of the WTO,'' said chairman of the WTO's agriculture committee, Nestor Osorio Londono, in a document issued to delegates at the meeting. ``The EU regime is considered an obstacle for the main agricultural exporting countries which compete in the European market and which seek to improve market access conditions for their exports,'' he added.

In addition, countries with closed agricultural regimes and domestic conditions obstructing change ``undoubtedly'' would try to limit any headway in the reform process, Osorio said, singling out Japan, Norway, Switzerland and South Korea. The US delegation is looking to the Latin Americans to unite in pushing the European Union in Seattle to reduce sharply its farm export subsidies.

Latin America's agricultural producers, particularly Brazil and Argentina, say EU agricultural policy is protectionist, deprives them of world market share and keeps prices for their products low. ``The United States, faced with the need to undertake substantial reductions in the support it provides to agriculture for a variety of reasons of which internal fiscal balancing is one, shares this particular concern (over the EU farm regime) of the Cairns Group (of agricultural countries),'' said Osorio. The EU makes up about 20 per cent of world farm exports.

``At the same time, the USA is the target of criticism with respect to its export credit policy ... (but) its attitude in this preliminary phase clearly shows its intention to achieve the maximum dynamism in the reform process,'' he said. Osorio added that the Cairns Group is hoping to have proposals for wide-ranging reform of agricultural regimes submitted by the middle of next year. Proposals should include a ``first approach'' to formulas on market access, export subsidies and domestic support levels, he said. Osorio said the negotiations on agricultural reform within the WTO talks themselves should be completed by 2003.

The sheer volume of agricultural production from the Mercosur trade bloc, which includes farming giants Brazil and Argentina as well as Paraguay and Uruguay, appears likely to ensure strong South American influence at the WTO talks. Brazil is the world's largest sugar producer and biggest grower and exporter of coffee. Brazil and Argentina are the world's second and third largest soybean producers, behind the United States, while a quarter of the world's cattle herd feeds on grasslands throughout the Mercosur nations.

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