Canada’s multibillion-dollar supply-managed sector wants to see a successful conclusion to World Trade Organization negotiations and thinks there are gains to be made for its dairy, poultry and egg farmers, insists Chicken Farmers of Canada general manager Mike Dungate.
The caveat is that proposals now on the negotiating table in Geneva are unacceptable. They would force Canada to increase minimum access and reduce tariffs that keep out product above the guaranteed access level.
Some in the industry have suggested the sector has little to gain other than defending what it already has.
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“We’re certainly operating with the perspective that we can get something positive out of this round, a clear definition of the rules that allow us to keep our system,” Dungate said.
“Reducing over-quota tariffs will not increase access and would destabilize our industry.”
As it stands, the text that negotiators will use as a starting point when talks resume says “market access increase(s) will result from a combination of tariff cuts and tariff rate quotas.”
Canada’s position, strongly articulated and promoted by supply management leaders, is that there should be a choice between expanded guaranteed quota access or over-quota reductions, rather than a requirement that both be used. Canada’s choice would be to guarantee access through quotas because it would allow stability in an industry that requires supply guarantees before it can plan production quotas.
Trade officials agree this will be one of Canada’s fights when serious trade negotiations start again sometime in 2004 or 2005.
At the end of the Cancun meeting, then-federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief told reporters Canada is alone among 148 WTO member countries in wanting no reductions in over-quota tariffs.
“This is going to be a tough issue for us, no doubt about it,” conceded chief Canadian agriculture negotiator Steve Verheul.
Robert Thompson, chair of the International Food and Agriculture Trade Policy Council in Washington who grew up on a New York dairy farm and has former chief Canadian agriculture negotiator Mike Gifford as one of his members, said recently Canada has no option but to compromise on supply management tariffs.
“Canada has tried to walk the line between being an exporter and free trader and having a protected part of the business,” he said in an interview after a recent Ottawa speech.
“To be consistent, I think you have to be flexible, concede some on tariffs and begin to prepare your protected sectors for competition.”
He said Vanclief was beginning the process of preparing supply-managed farmers for change when he made his post-Cancun comments about Canada’s isolation on the tariff issue.
“I think that was the right approach,” Thompson said. “It has to happen.”
New federal agriculture minister Bob Speller insists Canada will support supply management rules in negotiations.
And in a letter to Liberal MP Paul Steckle, new prime minister Paul Martin made the same point.
“We must be clear,” Steckle said Martin told him.
“When it comes to international trade negotiations, the concept of supply management is not negotiable.”
From Paris, International Federation of Agricultural Producers secretary general David King said Canadian farm leaders successfully convinced other IFAP members this autumn that Canada’s position is valid. Trade can be expanded without forcing cuts in over-quota tariffs.
“I think Canada made a very convincing case,” he said.
