SASKATOON (Staff) – They don’t have the flash of big-name trade negotiators, but sensible agriculture bureaucrats might have a better chance of resolving disputes on a lower level, says a United States Department of Agriculture official.
A new emphasis on international trade co-operation is developing just as some countries cannot afford to concentrate as heavily on policing each others’ produce, Canadian and Amer-ican representatives said during the yearly meeting of the North American Plant Protection Organization. The organization, which met here last week, includes Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
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“NAPPO and bilateral negotiations are trying to work those things out at a technical level and keep them out of the political, because we don’t have any control over what happens politically,” said USDA official Donald Husnick.
“We might be trading potatoes for computer chips, for all we know,” he said about how unpredictable politically controlled trade negotiations can be.
Husnick said the United States hopes to rely on internationally accepted standards to ease trade tensions. Many disputes arise when one nation’s agricultural products are kept out of another by phytosanitary standards – the regulations that attempt to control the spread of pests and diseases from import shipments.
The two sides have talked about making phytosanitary standards less trade restrictive “for years, but mostly we just talked about it, because the pressure to do anything wasn’t there,” he said.
“But with GATT, budget reductions and all this new demand for trade, all of a sudden all this stuff has been coming to the forefront.”
Budget cuts are one reason Canadian and American agriculture officials are so keen to reduce unnecessary product inspection.
The plant protection inspection branch of the Canadian federal agriculture department has been cut this year by 52 positions out of 300, said director Jean Hollebone, and more cuts are likely. Husnick said the U.S. government is expected to cut 272,000 staff over the next seven years, and its plant protection section is not immune.
The Canadian agriculture department has reacted by turning over some border inspections from its own staff to customs officers, Hollebone said.
Husnick said USDA hopes its inspectors can be pulled back from offices around the world if exporting nations and American officials can agree on phytosanitary standards. Now, many exporters to the U.S. have to pay for American inspectors to live in their countries. Canada and the U.S. accredit each others’ inspectors.
While trade agreements ease the path, Husnick said neither exporters nor importers want to rely on the treaties alone, so organizations like NAPPO are benefiting.
“Over the years very few industry people came to these meetings, but more are coming because they want to compete in (international) markets,” said Husnick.
“We need to have standards so they’re not getting into these big disputes and bureaucratic resolution processes that have never been used. We don’t even know how long they’re going to take or how effective they’re going to be.”
