CANCUN, Mexico – The domestic tensions in Canada’s farm policy debate were on display Sept. 8 when farm leaders from Cairns Group countries gathered to try to create a common policy to present to World Trade Organization ministers when they gather here Sept. 10-14.
When Australia argued that the group’s emphasis this time should be on radical increases in market access, Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen jumped in.
The CFA, representing supply management as well as export sectors, is supporting the Canadian “balanced” position of promoting exports while preserving supply management protections.
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Friesen said Canada has a free trade agreement with the United States, but it still suffers from the effects of U.S. subsidies.
“We have thousands of farmers who will tell you the problem isn’t market access,” the Manitoba turkey and hog producer.
“The problem is the level of American support we have to deal with.”
Sitting on the edge of the meeting as an “observer,” invited by the Australian chair over the objections of Friesen and CFA members, was Alberta grain farmer Ted Menzies, president of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance. He was preparing to tell Cairns farm leaders that it was not the only Canadian view.
“I don’t think the CFA can say it represents exporters, who are the biggest part of agriculture, when it is making statements like that,” he said in an interview. “I represent export sectors and I can tell you market access is a huge issue for them.”
He suggested Friesen’s statement represents the federation’s determination to preserve supply management in the face of strong pressure in this WTO negotiating round for more aggressive market openings.
While Menzies did not speak during the public part of the meeting (“I didn’t want to bring our domestic disputes here”), he said he would offer a more “focused” stance during the afternoon session, held in private to try to win approval for a communique.
The debate dragged on longer than expected into the late afternoon as divisions between developed and developing members of the Cairns Group were also exposed.
Officially, the 18 members of the Cairns Group support progress on market access, sharp reductions in production-distorting domestic support and elimination of export subsidies.
However, the Sept. 8 debate in Cancun exposed significant tensions over how to interpret those general principles.
Peter Barnard of the Australian Meat and Livestock Authority produced studies insisting that market access should be the biggest issue.
“Decisions are needed about how our negotiating coin should be placed and I believe that should be on pushing for market access.”
Friesen and some developing countries suggested market access without the capacity for developing countries to produce and export competitive products would swamp them in imported product to the detriment of their farmers.
A South African delegate said poor countries in his region “do not see market access alone as much of an answer because they are not prepared to take advantage of it without significant internal development and that will take years.”
It was a sign that the Cairns Group, once united in a simpler message of opposing excess American and European Union farm subsidies and subsidy wars, is finding it difficult to find a common voice in a more complicated WTO where developed and developing divides often are the issue.
