Prime minister Jean Chrétien rarely seems to miss an opportunity these
days to beat the drum for Canada’s trade negotiating position that rich
countries must decrease agricultural subsidy spending.
Last week, he went further than his government’s official position by
calling for the complete end of farm supports, which presumably would
affect several billions of dollars in Canadian farm subsidies if
Chrétien got his wish.
And a draft memorandum to cabinet on trade strategy, leaked to the
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Council of Canadians and several other activists groups, suggests
Canada is putting a lot of faith in the current round of world trade
talks to do the trick.
Last week at the United Nations in New York, Chrétien said that
agricultural subsidies are a key culprit in the growing gap between
rich and poor nations.
Official development assistance of $50 billion a year is dwarfed by the
$350 billion that rich nations spend annually on farm subsidies,
Chrétien told the UN general assembly during a session on development
needs in Africa.
“Agricultural subsidies in rich nations remain a fundamental obstacle
to African development,” he said.
“These huge supports put a strain on treasuries, depress prices and
effectively shut out producers from developing countries. Canada calls
on developed nations to make the elimination of such subsidies a top
priority.”
Canada’s official position at the World Trade Organization is less
radical. It says:
“In the area of domestic support, Canada is seeking the maximum
possible reduction or elimination of production and trade-distorting
support, including support under so called production limiting or Blue
Box programs (and) an overall limit on the amount of domestic support
of all types.”
However, Canada is calling for the elimination of export subsidies.
In the draft memo to cabinet, written in August by officials from the
trade, industry and finance departments and expected to be debated by
cabinet in September or October, WTO negotiations were identified as
Canada’s main hope for reducing world agricultural subsidies,
particularly those in the American farm bill.
The memo was meant to build the case for cabinet giving trade officials
a mandate to negotiate a new comprehensive world trade agreement.
“The WTO is the only forum offering any realistic prospect to secure
discipline on the U.S. for its trade-distorting agricultural policies
and damaging trade remedy actions,” the memo said.
That will be used as one of the government’s public arguments for
participating in the talks.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says
the WTO round also holds out hope for developing country farmers, since
the Doha Round is supposed to concentrate on “development” issues.
“There appears to be a general willingness to reconsider the imbalance
between developed and developing countries regarding their commitments
on domestic support,” the FAO said in its annual The State of Food and
Agriculture report issued in mid-September.
It suggested one way this may happen is to allow developing countries
to continue supporting their farm sectors through a “development box”
of programs even while developed countries commit to cutting
production-boosting support.
