Canadian farm leader Jack Wilkinson lost his bid last week to become president of the world farmers’ federation.
At the annual meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, Wilkinson lost the presidential vote to Gerald Doornbos from the Netherlands.
But the consolation prize for the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture was to be re-elected IFAP vice-president with responsibility for key areas of trade policy, biotechnology rules and organizing membership in Central and South America.
“These will be important areas in the next few years,” Wilkinson said in a June 5 interview from Vancouver,
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en route home to Ontario from the Philippines where IFAP met.
He said the world farm lobby still must work out a common trade policy that bridges the gap between conflicting positions on use of hormones in livestock production and trade in genetically modified food.
He said the election bid was lost when what was supposed to be a three-way fight became a two-way race. The French candidate withdrew in favor of Doornbos.
“The Europeans wanted to win and they made sure they did,” he said. “They voted and lobbied as a bloc.”
Although it was a secret ballot, the Canadians figured that the extensive work done in the Third World by the European Union and the Netherlands in particular swayed the votes of some developing countries.
“But I have a good working relationship with Doornbos,” said Wilkinson. “We will have no trouble working together.”
It means the international farm lobby goes into the next round of trade talks headed by a farm leader from the European Union, one of the most important players in the talks.
However, a former IFAP president said it should not be assumed Doornbos will tilt the federation toward supporting the EU in its inevitable trade negotiation battles with the United States or members of the Cairns Group, a collection of mid-sized grain exporters.
“I think IFAP and its members do a good job of striking a position independent of their governments,” Glenn Flaten, a former CFA president and IFAP president from 1986-90, said in an interview.
“Besides, I think the Netherlands is not typically European. They are traders and their trade views may be closer to North America sometimes than to the EU.”
Someone else’s turn
He said one factor that may have weighed against Wilkinson is that the IFAP presidency is supposed to rotate and Canada held it eight years ago.
In addition, the last president was from a country that is a member of the Cairns Group, as is Canada.
Australian Graham Blight reflected the Cairns Group hostility to export subsidies and trade barriers.
Wilkinson said the fact that he campaigned hard for the job may have forced Doornbos to take the presidency more seriously as well.
“It was not a cakewalk for him and I think the fact there was a race may have raised expectations of what he is expected to do.”
Wilkinson returns to his position as CFA president. He will step down next winter at the end of his third two-year term.
