Agriculture ministers and farm leaders from the Cairns Group of food exporting countries issued a clarion call on the need for a decisive trade-liberalizing result for World Trade Organization negotiations.
“The moment has arrived in this round to face up to the difficult decisions required to bring about a fairer trading environment for the world’s farmers,” says a statement issued April 1 after a meeting of the 17-country group in Cartagena, Colombia.
It called on WTO members to make significant progress and compromise before talks adjourn for a month at the end of July. WTO ministers are to meet in Hong Kong in December.
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“The period leading up to Hong Kong will require the leadership of the Cairns Group and of many in the WTO community,” said the Cartagena statement. “We call on all WTO members which are responsible for the distortions in global agriculture to show leadership. This leadership must begin by accepting that a fairer environment for global agriculture will require significant changes to their domestic and trade policy settings.”
However, there were differing interpretations after the meeting about where Canada fits into the Cairns declaration. In the past, Canada has differed from the majority Cairns view that the WTO outcome must include a lowering of overquota tariffs used to protect supply management.
Canada insists that expanded guaranteed access through tariff rate quotas, or TRQs, can be used to expand trade in dairy and poultry products without the need to destabilize the sectors through lower tariffs.
In an April 1 interview from Colombia, Canadian agriculture minister Andy Mitchell said there is a growing understanding among Cairns members that Canada and some other countries need flexibility in deciding how to expand market access.
“I think there is a growing understanding that a strong agreement requires the support of all countries and for some, including Canada, rules dealing with sensitive products have to give some flexibility,” he said. “I see growing recognition of that reality.”
So did Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen, who attended a Cairns farm leaders’ meeting as the official Canadian representative.
Friesen said the Cairns Group is starting to realize a fixation on tariff reductions is not the only way to increase market access.
“It’s about the ability of countries to choose flexible solutions,” he said. “What’s important is the result and if TRQs result in improved access, as they do, then what is wrong with that? I believe they are beginning to understand that.”
Ontario farmer Liam McCreery, president of the aggressively free trade Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, was at the meeting as an observer and he saw something different.
“Cairns stands for cuts in all tariffs and Canada has signed on to that,” he said April 4. “That does not mean that overquota tariffs can be exempted. The goal of tariff cuts is clear.”
Last July in Geneva, Canada succeeded in having a WTO negotiating text amended to remove a requirement that market access would have to be improved through both TRQ expansion and tariff reduction.
The Cairns statement appeared to revert to the original wording.
“We will ensure that we achieve the framework’s requirement of substantial improvement in access for sensitive products through combinations of tariff reductions and tariff quota expansion,” it said.
The Cairns Group was created in 1986 to push for tougher trade rules to end protectionism and export subsidies.
