There will be no new comprehensive settlement at World Trade
Organization negotiations if the developing countries that make up the
majority of WTO members do not receive a better deal on agriculture,
speakers repeatedly told a Nov. 4 seminar on the current WTO
“development” round of talks.
But it is far from clear that developed countries will be willing to
support the kind of deal developing countries want, even if they agree
the benefits to poor countries from liberalized trade must be increased.
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During the two-day seminar on “food and trade, the WTO development
challenge,” there were calls for rules that would allow developing
countries to increase subsidies and retain border protections while
developed countries do the opposite.
“It is absolutely essential to protect small subsistence farmers from
subsidized imports,” said John Kihara, commercial attaché at the Kenyan
High Commission in Ottawa. Import of cheaper products into developing
countries has “in many cases had a devastating impact on local
agriculture.”
Geneva consultant Luisa Bernal, who advises developing countries on
trade strategy, was one of many who argued that the last world trade
agreement in 1994 helped rich countries gain market access and hurt
many developing countries that could not compete with subsidized
imports and cannot afford domestic support for farmers.
“There are no safety nets,” she said. “So there is a need for special
safeguards to protect them.”
She said many of the developing world proposals for special treatment
have been receiving a cool reception at trade negotiations in Geneva.
Canadian cabinet ministers and government officials attending the
meeting said they are sympathetic to developing world aspirations.
“There is a big gap between the haves and the have-nots,” said
agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief.
He said Canada supports many of the developing world demands for
increased market access and “special and different treatment,” although
he did not specifically say that Canada would support the proposals for
a developing world exemption from many of the tariff and subsidy
reductions expected to come out of the WTO negotiations.
International development minister Susan Whelan is leading an effort
to make support for small farmers in developing countries a focus of
the Canadian International Development Agency’s international programs
and to develop a Canadian negotiating position sensitive to their
plight.
But Stuart Clark, senior policy adviser at the Canadian Foodgrains
Bank, said there is a “yawning gap” between Canada’s supportive words
and what it has done in negotiations.
