Oilseed producers push EU to fight US

French oilseed and protein producers have condemned the new US farm bill that boosts crop and dairy subsidies and urged the European Commission to fight back, possibly within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), reports Reuters.

"The new US farm law is totally blameworthy because it totally flouts the commitments made at the WTO,"​ Xavier Beulin, President of the French oilseeds and protein growers' group FOP said at the margin of its annual congress in Paris.

"It's not the moment for the European Union to drop its guard,"​ he added. US President George W. Bush on Monday signed a six-year law boosting crop and dairy subsidies by 67 per cent, adding an estimated US$ 6.4 billion (€7 bn) a year to farm spending and marking a further retreat from free-market reforms begun in 1985.

The fatter subsidies will become available at harvest - just weeks away for the drought withered winter wheat crop. The FOP said it was shocked that the US farm bill incorporated marketing loans which in its view are against international trade rules and should be challenged at the WTO.

Beulin said that the European Oilseeds Association (EOA) would soon lodge a complaint called 'regulation for trade obstacle' to the Commission on the US marketing loans for soybeans growers. The lobby's complaint could speed up action at EU level as it would force the EU executive to give, within a short period of time, its opinion on the rightfulness of launching a panel at the WTO on the perverse effects of the soybeans marketing loans.

FOP' s request for a stronger fight against US farm policy, especially in the oilseeds sector, was echoed by British and German counterparts invited to the congress.

"It's high time that the Commission shows strong leadership and challenges the United States in the WTO, and challenges it now,"​ said Rad Thomas, president of the oilseeds section of the British National Farmers Union (NFU).

"At the moment in the agriculture world, there is no liberty, equality nor fraternity,"​ he added, referring to the French revolution values.

Klaus Kliem, President of the German oilseeds promotion group UFOP called on the Commission to use the coming review of EU farm policy to raise payments to the oilseeds producers in answer to the U.S. farm subsidy law.

"We call on the Commission to take account of this (the U.S. farm bill) when it will make its mid-term review proposals and to decide new subventions for the oilseeds and protein sector,"​ he told participants at the congress.