Agriculture issues continue to haunt Geneva talks

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New Delhi, July 20: Agriculture still remains to be a contentious issue as Geneva gets ready to host the mini-ministerial for reviving the multilateral trade negotiations. In agriculture, both the offensive and defensive interests are likely to come to the fore with equal vigour

From the side of the developing countries, Brazil has made clear that that the developed nation's heavy subsidies and high tariff barriers for agriculture products the biggest obstacle to an agreement on the Doha round. India and other developing countries would also join Brazil in demanding a drastic cut in developed countries' trade-distorting farm subsidies, particularly asking US to reduce its subsidies from $ 55 billion to $13billion.

Brazil and India are member of G-20 group of developing countries. Though US has indicated that it is prepared some reduction in its subsidy, TomHarkin, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry joined by his colleague Saxby Chambliss and 15 other members of the panel have cautioned the US trade representative Susan Schwab saying " reduction in trade-distorting domestic support must be accompanied by real market access gains that are compatible in magnitude and will provide net gains for US agriculture. Anything less will not receive our support.”

They further said “ The provisions of the most recent text on sensitive products, special products (SPs), the proposed new special safeguard mechanism (SSM) and exceptions for recently acceded members do not inspire much confidence that a balanced agreement can be reached Twice before, the US rightly rejected an unbalanced framework agreement and opted instead to continue discussions towards achieving a comprehensive result that will generate new trade flows. Neither US agriculture nor individual commodities should have to shoulder an unfair burden of the negotiations. If you are presented with an unbalanced text, we urge you to reject it in favour of continued negotiations.”

The US senators call for real market access gains that are compatible in magnitude to cause net gains to US agriculture clashes with the interests of the developing countries which are eager to protect their food and livelihood security.

The group of developing countries led by G-33 is interested in self-designation of SPs based on select indicators, which would not be subjected to tariff cuts.

G-33 has also demanded a strong and effective SSM to prevent any possible surge in cheap imports.