European Union politicians in Ottawa last week warned that American proposals to increase farm subsidies in a new farm bill will be a stumbling block at world trade talks, expected to begin in November.
“The major problem, and it’s going to be a problem within the discussions on the World Trade Organization, is going to be the Americans because … their proposals to increase the farm bill are actually not in the spirit of the whole principles that we’re looking at within an agricultural policy across the European Union,” Robert Sturdy of the United Kingdom told the Canadian House of Commons foreign affairs committee Oct. 16.
Read Also
Saskatchewan RM declines feedlot application, cites bylaws
Already facing some community pushback, a proposed 2,000-head cattle feedlot south of Swift Current, Sask., has been rejected for a municipal permit, partly over zoning concerns about the minimum distance from a residence.
He was part of a European Parliament delegation that has been touring Canada, studying issues as diverse as security, agriculture, forestry and tourism.
Manitoba Canadian Alliance MP Brian Pallister and other rural MPs had told the visiting European politicians that Canadian farmers are suffering from the subsidy war between the United States and Europe.
Pallister said foreign farm subsidies are killing rural Canada, forcing farmers to get bigger or leave.
“Our average farm size is multiple of what it once was,” he said. ” My own brother farms land now which used to be farmed, in my father’s lifetime, by over 20 different families. This is not a unique thing in rural Canada today.”
Sturdy agreed. As a British Conservative, he showed little support for the EU subsidy policy, even though he said rural areas and small farms also are under attack in the U.K.
“Farms are going to get bigger. There is no way you can continue to keep the small farmer,” he said. “It is a tragedy, I agree, but if you start pouring money into the small farm, then you subsidize the small farmers. You create a position where you lose competition and I think it’s bad for the industry.”
Committee chair Bill Graham, a Toronto MP, said he was surprised to hear the European view that the U.S. is the culprit and may start the next subsidy war.
“Normally, we perceive it as the European issue so … if we’re going to urge Europe to reduce its subsidies, we have to make sure we’re doing our thing.”
Later, Pallister said he was encouraged to see that EU politicians are not uniformly in support of the expensive EU subsidy regime.
However, the European politicians offered less hope on the genetic modification front.
They outlined a complicated and forbidding procedure for getting GM Canadian products into Europe. The EU is poised to begin accepting GM imports again after several years of an unofficial moratorium.
Marianne Thyssen of Belgium said Europeans no longer trust their food and six of 15 EU members still do not want to allow sale of GM products. The proposed way out of that moratorium is to create a system of authorization for GM products, as long as they are labelled and the product can be traced back to origin.
“What does it mean for you? I think if there are imports from Canada … of say modified canola, you need an authorization,” she said. “But once authorized, I think you can find a new market in Europe.”
