OECD: agriculture reform in everyone's interests
Round of WTO trade negotiations is still possible, but agriculture
remains a key issue of difficulty.
The economic case for further farm and trade policy reform remains compelling, according to OECD experts.
Most countries stand to gain significantly something the WTO has said all along.
But agriculture remains a frustrating sticking point.
This issue was resurrected when more than 90 delegates representing Latin American countries, international organisations and the food and farming sectors discussed several of the issues dividing countries at a two-day conference this week on agriculture and trade in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The event was organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Inter-American Development Bank.
The OECD put forward the case yet again that many farmers, taxpayers and consumers would benefit from changes to current farm policies. And many more would benefit further from trade policy reforms in other areas, such as industrial goods and services.
"Failure to reach a multilateral agreement would mean that these benefits will be lost," said Ken Ash, deputy director of food, agriculture and fisheries at the OECD.
"The costs of failure could also be damage to the basis of a multilateral, rules-based trading system. Unblocking the agriculture negotiations is crucial."
The Doha Development Agenda, launched in November 2001, in the Qatari capital, Doha, aimed to free global trade by cutting industrial and agricultural tariffs and by reducing farm subsidies, with a special focus on achieving concrete benefits for developing countries.
But WTO members refused to budge on issues such as the lowering of tariffs on certain goods, during the final Doha round of WTO trade talks this summer.
As a result, global barriers to trade and unfair subsidies remain in place to this day, despite various appeals from WTO director general Pascal Lamy and others.
The CIAA, the European food and drink industry's voice in Brussels, has continuously supported the Doha development agenda since the beginning of the round, five years ago and has campaigned for a resumption of talks.
New OECD analysis strengthens the case for resuming talks. According to the organisation, research shows that agricultural tariffs and price support mechanisms do a poor job of providing income support for farm families, encouraging sustainable economic development, maintaining healthy rural communities, and protecting the environment.
Governments would do better to shift their efforts away from price and production-related support to policies that directly target what they want to achieve.
To move forward, the OECDs message is that combining trade talks with necessary domestic reforms and effective development assistance would allow the gaps which currently divide countries and which led to the suspension of WTO negotiations in July to be narrowed.
Once the agriculture divide is overcome, negotiations might also progress in other areas where even greater benefits from more open trade can be reaped.
