Posted on 10/25/2005 9:32:46 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Rich countries must abandon farm subsidies and give more market access to poor states if the Doha trade talks are to succeed, the head of the World Bank said today. Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz made his appeal amid fears that the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting of ministers in Hong Kong was in jeopardy because of the absence of progress on farm subsidies.
Writing in the Financial Times, Wolfowitz said the need to reduce protection on agriculture was a central element of the Doha talks. He warned that unless serious concessions were made by all sides, the Doha talks would fail "and the people who will suffer the most are the world's poor".
Wolfowitz, formerly a leading Pentagon official, called on the U.S. to step up efforts to cut farm subsidies and urged the European Union to do more on market access for products from poor countries. He added, however, that developing countries also had to open their services and manufacturing markets and lower their own agricultural protection.
Wolfowitz said it was not morally justifiable for rich countries to spend $280 billion (£158 billion) - nearly the total gross domestic product of Africa and four times the total amount of foreign aid - on support for agricultural producers.
The current round of WTO talks stalled in Geneva after wealthy countries failed to reach an agreement on lowering domestic agriculture subsidies and tariffs earlier this month.
Mark Vaile, the Australian trade minister and deputy prime minister, said the E.U. and "particularly France" were responsible for the deadlock because they had refused to accept a plan to cut European farm aid.
"They need to understand they are threatening the future of global trade and cheating millions of the world's poor out of new hope," Vaile said. "It's not enough for them to provide aid and debt relief when the benefits of liberalizing trade are so much greater."
An agreement in Hong Kong is supposed to pave the way for the conclusion of the Doha development round next year, but deadlock on farm subsidies has threatened to scupper the entire process.
The E.U. - generally seen as the villain of the piece by developing countries and the U.S. - is working on a second and final offer this week. The move follows what the U.S. described as its "bold" proposal for trimming the most damaging of its multi-billion dollar agricultural subsidies by up to 60% and phasing them out within a decade.
Development activists say the U.S. scheme is double-edged because it insists on poor countries opening up their manufacturing sectors, a step that could lead to the sectors' collapse in the face of foreign competition.
The U.S. plan has put the E.U. on the spot, and it has struggled to come up with a unified position. France believes the latest round of common agricultural policy reforms - which cut the link between the level of subsidy and the amount farmers produce - went far enough, and is refusing to budge.
The idea of cancelling the Hong Kong meeting has been proposed, but Australia has rejected it. "I don't believe the meeting should be postponed, even if the E.U. does not put forward a better proposal," Vaile said. "I believe the E.U. and France would need to account for their actions before the parliament of world opinion."
Wolfowitz increased pressure on the industrialized world when he said the temporary discomfort of industrialized countries in getting rid of farm subsidies was "nothing compared with the daily discomfort and deprivation faced by the world's poorest people".
Actually, the topic is ending farm subsidies. You're the one supporting government control of agriculture.
I knew you'd pitch in with a personal slur and an off topic comment.
Mentioning your lack of logic is no slur and is never off topic.
**it is preferable to "free market" conditions which are cyclicly subject to shortage conditions**
When was the last food shortage in the USA? Historically I say we never had one.
The idea that farmers is not going to plant if the government don't support them is foolish. The only way they make money is by growing and raising things. Now I grew up in a farm and my home county has about 4000 persons in it. For a long time the average income was about $15,000. Last I saw about $15 million in farm aid was going to that county. Most farmers got a hundred up to a couple of thousand from the program. A few well off connected farmers got the real money. Still they didn't keep the money. Ask any farmer who they really work for and it is the bankers.
The farm bill is just a big transfer from the government to the bankers when the day is done. Most farmers never made much of a living with the Government's help. Like welfare in the cities just enough to live on and vote for politicans to continue the farm subsidies.
If you like farm subsidies that much and think that they make things cheaper then support the same idea for health care, for housing, for manufacturing.
Please explain how cutting the billions in farm subsidies causes a hardship in rich countries.
Is the discomfort Wolfowitz alludes to the lowering of our own standard of living to third world levels?
Cutting subsidies, lowering taxes and buying less expensive food would raise our standard of living.
Does that make "free trade" morally justifiable in your mind?
Yes, raising our standard of living is morally and economically justifiable.
Wolfowitz says that "rich countries" must endure hardship.
The topic, once again, is the marxist rhetoric of "free trade".
Yes, cutting wasteful government spending is real hardship!! P.S. he didn't use the word hardship.
The topic, once again, is the marxist rhetoric of "free trade".
Your topic is marxist rhetoric. Wolfowitz's topic is cutting farm subsidies.
Incorrect, New World Order breath!!
Wolfowitz, formerly a leading Pentagon official, called on the U.S. to step up efforts to cut farm subsidies and urged the European Union to do more on market access for products from poor countries. He added, however, that developing countries also had to open their services and manufacturing markets and lower their own agricultural protection.
Even if he was only asking them to lower subsidies by 50%, that is still asking them to drop subsidies.
Maybe you should ask him what he meant.
Great...Love Canel Food from the 3rd world!
From the The Economist:
Banning DDT is a great idea whose time has not yet come.
Although many countries already have such a ban in theory, poor enforcement means that it often leaks into agriculture. UNEP reckons that as much as half of the DDT used today is for purposes other than fighting malaria inside homes.
From Wikipedia:
This farmer's son agrees. My dad was paid for land set aside or not produced. Terrible.
I despise farm subsidies.
What happens with subsidies?
Consumers pay twice! You pay higher taxes to support inefficient farming practices in places hundreds, if not thousands of miles from your home and then pay again in higher prices at the grocery store.
The era of the small family farm is OVER. Farm subsidies make me sick - especially the ones that pay people not go grow food.
This nation could easily feed everyone - even those who go hungry today - if we'd just fully open up the ag markets and eliminate these silly subsidies.
Pick up a copy of James Bovard's Farm Fiasco.
Plenty of bread lines and soup kitchens during the Dust Bowl / Great Depression.
So you obviously don't know American history.
Absolutely right!
Was that a food shortage or a money shortage? Links please.
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