GENEVA, 21 August 2003 — Developing countries with some two-thirds of the world’s farmers, including Brazil, China and India, put forward a plan yesterday for deep cuts in farm subsidies but rich states dismissed the call as “nothing new.”
The proposal, aimed at countering a much-criticized joint European Union and US scheme, was put to the 146-state World Trade Organization which is racing to conclude some deals before a key ministerial meeting next month.
At the same time, a number of key farm importing countries, including Japan, Switzerland and Taiwan, with highly protected farm sectors, said that they could not accept any rapid changes to current rules.
The developing country plan, backed by 15 mainly exporting states, principally from Latin America, sought more stringent cuts in domestic support programs than those offered by the EU and the United States, the two biggest subsidizers.
It also said that rich states should commit themselves to “eliminate” all export subsidies, with special consideration being given to those products that were of particular concern to developing countries.
On import tariffs, the third key area or “pillar” of the farm trade talks, the developing countries sought to place the biggest responsibility for cuts on the rich, with poorer states being able to reduce less and more slowly. But EU chief negotiator Peter Carl told journalists that the plan, which sought to answer point-for-point the EU-US text, was a “repetition of well-known positions.” “There is nothing new in this,” he said.
The farm talks are part of the wider Doha Round of free trade talks which are designed to lower barriers to business across the global economy, but diplomats say that without an accord on agriculture there can be no progress elsewhere.
Trade envoys said they expected that WTO farm mediator Stuart Harbinson, a former Hong Kong ambassador, would now try to craft a compromise draft from the often contradictory plans.
The EU-US plan was heavily criticized by exporting countries and by poorer states for not doing enough to reduce the some $300 billion a year that the rich countries — mainly the EU and the United States — give in aid to their farmers.
As with the EU-US blueprint, the developing country plan, which was also sponsored by South Africa and Thailand, put no figures to its call for reductions. But it did go into detail on the special treatment that would be afforded to poorer countries to ensure that their farmers did not suffer — a strong demand of India.
Whereas the EU-US plan had offered cuts in “most” trade-distorting domestic support, the developing countries demanded cuts in “all” such aids.