CALGARY – A gathering of export-loving, free trade advocating farmers should logically produce an unbroken chorus of praise for a new, aggressive round of World Trade Organization negotiations.
Yet a recent meeting of the Canadian Agri-food Trade Alliance produced anything but a unified message.
There were worries that Canada will not be aggressive enough, skepticism of real progress based on the disappointing results of the last trade deal and concern that Canada’s free trade message may be diluted in order to protect some sensitive domestic industries.
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Mark Kuryvial, a sugar beet farmer from Taber, Alta. , is one who doubts that world trade talks will do his industry much good.
“I’m pretty skeptical that there is going to be any real improvement on market access or any real improvement on domestic support,” he said during the CAFTA conference.
If generous domestic subsidies and high tariffs prevail in other countries, Kuryvial fears the sugar beet industry is doomed.
“If it goes, I’m sure I’ll survive as a farmer but it will have a big effect on the town of Taber,” said the president of the Canadian Sugar Beet Producers Association.
While the Taber-based sugar beet industry is a small spot on the map, Kuryvial worries about the effects on his community. If the Rogers sugar plant in Taber closed, more than 300 people would lose their jobs and 400 producers would be forced to adjust their crops and farming practices as they search for another cash crop.
Not only has the World Trade Organization agreement worked against sugar beet producers, but the Canadian government has allowed relatively cheap cane sugar
carrying an eight percent tariff to enter the country, Kuryvial said.
The domestic industry continues to shrink from a high of more than 55,000 acres in Alberta to about 26,000 this year. The industry already has disappeared in Manitoba and Quebec.
Tariffs of more than 150 percent keep Canadian producers out of the international market.
Saskatchewan beef producer Neil Jahnke offers a different perspective.
He has little sympathy for those who come out losers in trade negotiations. He wants freer trade.
“We have to trade and if Canada has to give something up, you can’t win all the time,” said Jahnke, vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.
However, he too is critical about how little was achieved in the last round of trade negotiations.
High tariff rates and quotas remain in markets like Japan where Canada hopes to expand its market for beef and veal products.
For example, Japan’s tariff on red meat products still is 38.5 percent, down from about 50 percent in 1994.
An ongoing disagreement with the European Union over hormone-treated beef still rankles.
The WTO ruled that barring North American hormone-treated beef on the grounds of a health risk was a non-tariff barrier. But since then, nothing has happened to allow trade to start.
Appeals continue and the Europeans stall by claiming they want more scientific evidence before accepting these products.
Retaliatory tariffs were levied against some minor European commodities but those measures did not force a turnaround on the major product of red meat. In future agreements, cattle producers want binding rules and an end to appeals and delays.
Brian Kriz of the Grain Growers of Canada remains cynical. After the last deal, foreign governments found creative ways to maintain subsidies and tariffs at levels where Canada cannot compete.
“It’s a game that countries with money keep playing,” he said.
Kriz believes Canada should not have to accept subsidized grains and he argues the country should consider asking the WTO to impose penalties.
Nations that heavily subsidize their producers should face higher tariffs internationally, he said.
Those with lower production subsides would have the benefit
of lower tariffs.
“The penalty of higher tariffs might keep subsidies lower,” he said.
High subsidy rates on American and European crops also keep nations like Canada from fully realizing their goals as exporters, said CAFTA president Liam McCreery.
“We would like to see a more aggressive approach to reducing domestic subsidies which are obviously trade distorting and a more aggressive approach to taking down tariffs that are barriers to liberalized trade,” he said.
