The June 9-12 world food summit in Rome likely was a visit that United
States agriculture secretary Ann Veneman would just as soon forget.
By most accounts, much of the political side-play during the United
Nations conference aimed at reducing world hunger was spent organizing
resistance to the recently enacted U.S. farm bill.
In news conferences in Rome and later in Ottawa, Canadian agriculture
minister Lyle Vanclief said the Americans are virtually without friends
on the issue of farm subsidies and Veneman was told that time and again.
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
“I have never seen the United States so verbally attacked at every
opportunity,” he said during a June 11 telephone news conference from
Rome. Earlier, Vanclief had helped organize an anti-farm bill public
denunciation featuring the countries attending a UN Food and
Agriculture Organization conference.
“We have 180-plus countries here and everyone, everyone without
exception that speaks on this, is saying that they are going the wrong
way.”
Developed countries complained that rich U.S. subsidies lower world
prices and make it difficult to compete. Developing countries said
cheap imports based on world prices make it difficult for their local
farm sectors to survive.
Veneman’s main response was to complain that critics do not understand
the bill. It is legislating support levels already achieved in yearly
ad hoc payments, she said.
The critics told her that the Americans have promised in world trade
talks to reduce subsides, not write them in legislative stone.
Already in Congress there is pressure for emergency drought aid on top
of guaranteed subsidies, so the farm bill sets minimum, rather than
maximum, subsidy levels.
Back in Canada, the government continued its attack on the farm bill.
In Halifax June 15, new finance minister John Manley used a meeting of
finance ministers from the most developed countries, including the
U.S., to condemn the protectionist nature of the farm bill and to
promise that the government “will not abandon” Canadian farmers in the
face of unfair competition.
