THE suspension of World Trade Organization talks presents an opportunity for Canadian agriculture to reassess its orientation and attitude to trade.
It also emphasizes the need for Ottawa to identify key trade goals and pursue them on bilateral and multilateral levels.
The Doha round won’t be revived soon. Talks foundered on a stalemate between the European Union and United States. The U.S. would not accept the EU’s offer on tariff reduction and market access while the EU rejected the American offer on domestic subsidy reduction.
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Many believe the talks will now be on hiatus for a year or more but there is no time for complacency.
The United States, Australia and other countries are engaged in bilateral trade negations with key partners. These deals threaten Canada’s access to these markets and so the federal government must step up its own bilateral trade agenda.
The farm community should use the time to heal divisions, assess opportunities in trade and devise a more unified position on agriculture and trade policy.
The recent trade negotiation push splintered what had been an uneasy truce between supply-managed industries and more trade-oriented grain and livestock industries.
As the rhetoric grew, any gain by one side was seen as a loss for the other.
When such divisions wrack the farm community it makes it easier for governments to impose often inadequate policies. It is far better for farmers to come up with their own policies.
The former position, a dual approach advocating open markets in some areas and protection for supply management, was condemned by some as hypocrisy.
But it recognized the fact that in any negotiation, particularly at the WTO, all parties have areas they want to protect while urging others to be more open.
That said, there is value in examining whether the current supply management system delivers the best value to Canadian farmers and the economy.
It clearly benefits participating producers’ incomes but there are drawbacks, such as high quota prices that limit access to the industry, complaints from food processors about noncompetitive prices, and high tariff protection that runs counter to trends in international trade policy.
Farmers could consider system reform to reduce these irritants while preserving as much as possible income protection for dairy, poultry and egg producers.
But the farm community must also be aware that improved trade is not a solution to farm income problems.
Issues about market power, cost of production, bureaucracy and access to technology and rural services are equally, and perhaps more important to preservation of family farms.
A clear, united farm voice on these issues, not internal trade policy squabbling, will do more to advance the cause of farmers.
