Canada has been failing to live up to its promise to use World Trade Organization agriculture negotiations to promote policies that help developing countries, says a coalition of development activists.
“There remains a startling gap between Canada’s expressed commitment to development, the severity of the agricultural crisis that grips the world, particularly small farmers in developing countries, and the Canadian trade positions presented to date,” says a brief presented to the government by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation.
At a Parliament Hill news conference May 15, Mark Fried of Oxfam Canada praised the Canadian support for an end to export subsidies that depress world prices and flood the developing world with cheap food.
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However, he said Canada has been stingy in its support for other concessions needed by developing countries – the ability to use tariffs to protect sensitive local crops, the ability to increase support for low-income farmers and the right to create marketing boards to increase farmer market power.
Fried said WTO rules that give developing world countries and farmers more tools to protect their markets are key if the so-called Doha Development Round really is to help poor countries.
He accused Canada, along with other developed countries, of making few concessions that would help poor countries to develop agriculturally, even though a number of proposals have been tabled at the WTO talks by developing countries.
“These have been given a cool reception, receiving virtually no political support from northern countries, including Canada,” said the report.
Fried said the September WTO meeting of trade and agriculture ministers in Cancun, Mexico, should be a forum for Canada to begin living up to its pro-development rhetoric.
A few days earlier, MPs had received a far different version of Canada’s performance from the government.
Chief agriculture negotiator Steve Verheul told the House of Commons agriculture committee that while the European Community claims to be the developing world’s best ally, it offers increased access only to a select group of countries.
“We have very open access to developing countries, one of the more open economies in the world for developing countries,” he said. “We’re certainly farther along in that regard than Europe is, pretty close to the U.S. as well.”
Mark Corey, assistant deputy agriculture minister, insisted Canada is living up to its development commitments at Doha.
“I think Canada has been among the forefront of countries internationally that has been promoting trade liberalization, and particularly the reduction of export subsidies and domestic support as a way to improve the lot of developing countries,” he said.
The CCIC report to government said developed countries seem intent on preserving the inequality that was built into the last agricultural agreement in 1994. Since then, “many developing countries have experienced a surge of cheap, often dumped, agricultural imports while exports have remained largely flat-lined.”
CCIC president Gerry Barr said the solution for poor countries is not simply to give them more time to open their markets to cheap goods from industrialized countries.
They need special rules, protections and flexibility to develop their agriculture while gaining access to the richer countries’ markets, he said.
“Cancun will be the last opportunity for Canada and the rest of the developed world to make a real difference,” he said. “So far, the odds are long.”
