The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says the now-stalled World Trade Organization negotiations were heading in the wrong direction when they bogged down at the end of July.
If the talks do revive, they must be refocused on the needs of farmers in poor and developing countries and less on the commercial interests of “large and powerful countries, corporations and lobbies,” the agency said.
The FAO, which receives most of its budget from the rich developed countries of the United Nations, essentially accused those same countries of hijacking what is supposed to be a development round.
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“The negotiations were expected to address trade issues related to the needs of poor countries and small farmers,” the FAO said in an Aug. 8 statement on the talks.
“But they never quite got around to these issues and as a result the Doha round collapsed because of a fundamental lack of fairness in its vision, its process and its projected outcomes.”
The Rome-based organization said if the talks are revived, developed countries should make concessions on their subsidies and trade barriers that hurt the developing world and make sure developing countries have the investment and infrastructure that will allow them to take advantage of that new market access.
There was no mention of market access or other concessions expected by developing countries.
The FAO position appeared to align the UN organization closely with the bargaining position of WTO developing country members who argued the talks are supposed to be about concessions from the developed countries, not about reciprocal concessions on market access or government support from the poor.
The FAO characterized the talks that started in 2001 as primarily “a fight for advantage in agricultural markets by large and powerful countries, corporations and lobbies” and complained that the talks had focused on “free trade rather than fair trade.”
The agency described the existing trading system as competition “between corporations using modern technologies and small farmers without adequate water control and basic rural infrastructure.”
During the negotiations, many of the leading developed country negotiators insisted there must be disciplines on developing country traders as well, since many are significant and efficient agricultural producers.
They have argued that their attempts at negotiating a more liberal trading regime would help all countries, rich and poor, by providing more opportunities to create wealth.
Meanwhile, Ottawa trade consultant Peter Clark said last week that efforts in the United States Congress to extend the farm bill past 2007 probably means there will be renewed attempts this autumn to get the trade talks going again. There also are congressional efforts to extend the legislative trade fast track authority beyond next summer.
However, congressional elections in November probably mean many candidates will be appealing to voter protectionism.
In Banff, Alta., last week where provincial and state agricultural officials and ministers from Canada, the United States and Mexico met to talk about trade issues, most of the focus was on the North American Free Trade Agreement but there also was support for rekindling the Doha flame.
“There was a clear agreement here that negotiators should get back to the table,” British Columbia agriculture minister Pat Bell told an Aug. 10 news conference. “Perhaps Doha is not as dead as we thought it was.”
