Brazil Wins Support on Farm Trade Talks

Brazil, a world leader in food exports, won U.S. support and near unanimous agreement from 16 other major agricultural nations on Monday to insist liberalized farm trade be at the center of any new round of global trade talks.

Farms produce the equivalent of about 50% of global economic output. But agriculture is one of the most heavily subsidized and protected sectors in the world.

The 18 countries gathered in this wind-swept, ocean-side resort where the last so-called Uruguay Round of global trade talks took place are known as the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters. They reckon farm subsidies and protection totaled about $360 billion in 2000.

“I see no sense whatsoever in a new international negotiating round without inserting agriculture as the priority,” Brazilian Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes told Reuters on the sidelines of the Cairns Group meeting, which precedes November’s World Trade Organization talks in Qatar.

An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study in June 2000 found European Union subsidies to farmers were equal to 49% of gross farm receipts whereas the U.S. Export Enhancement Program accounted for 24% of gross farm receipts, up from 14% in 1997 despite U.S. moves to deregulate its farm sector in the mid-1990s.

“Either we negotiate a central place for agricultural production or we negotiate nothing,” Pratini said. “The entire world wants to sell to us, but we can’t sell to them.”

The gathering reads like a “Who’s Who” of farm export powerhouses: Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay. Representatives of the United States are also attending.

Cairns Group officials held friendly talks with the U.S. and expressed hope that the leading agricultural exporter could assist in advancing their agenda with the EU and Japan at November’s meeting in Qatar, a Chilean delegate said.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said, “We share the view that agriculture has to be central to a future negotiating round and we want to work with the Cairns Group to develop an aggressive framework to launch a new negotiating round.”