Rich farm subsidies attacked at Earth Summit

11.45am

JOHANNESBURG - The world's richest nations faced calls at the Earth Summit on Tuesday to scrap billions of dollars in farm subsidies blamed for exacerbating hunger and hampering trade from Africa and Asia.

Domestic political considerations are stopping wealthy governments from impoverishing their own farmers and Western officials sought to focus attention on efforts to improve agricultural production in nations where many are hungry.

Yet with famine looming over 13 million people in southern Africa, delegates attending a session in Johannesburg on sustainable agriculture took aim at trade-distorting subsidies aiding farmers in Europe and North America.

"We sit here talking about sustainable agriculture and families are dying," said Lebohang Ntsinya, Environment Minister for Lesotho, one of six countries in the region battling severe food shortages. "We appeal to you to put your policies right."

The 10-day summit, which aims to draft an action plan to reduce poverty without damaging the environment, takes place during the worst food crisis to hit southern Africa in a decade.

Developing countries are pressing for a commitment from their rich Western neighbours to trim fat subsidies they say restrict access for their products into developed markets.

"There cannot be sustainable development in our countries as long as these policies continue," a Uruguayan official said.

Tewolde Gebre Egziabher of Ethiopia, which fell victim to one of the worst famines in recent memory in the 1980s, told Reuters: "There is a big gulf still between north and south... The northern states still insist on maintaining subsidies."

The United States has drawn fire for a new Farm Bill set to boost subsidies to domestic farmers, whereas radical plans to reform Europe's farm policy have left the continent bitterly divided over French-led opposition to the plan.

"We're entering an economic slowdown and it's always harder at such times for countries to open their markets," one west European negotiator said.

Measuring subsidies as a percentage of farmers' total income, the EU stood at 35 per cent, while the United States had climbed to 21 per cent from a low of 14 per cent in the mid-1990s.

One World Bank official noted: "The average cow is supported by three times the level of income of a poor person in Africa".

Rich countries gave about US$57 billion in development aid in 2001 but paid more than US$350 billion to their own farmers. Such subsidies help keep out Third World produce.

World Bank figures suggest opening access to rich markets would gain developing countries about US$150 billion a year.

"We're subsidising farmers in the north to the tune of US$1 billion a day to preserve some very valid goals like a way of life, while we are not subsidising to any measurable strength the hungry and the poor farmers of the world," said University of California environmental professor Pedro Sanchez.

"Can we take a piece of this US$1 billion a day that European and North American farmers are getting...and put it toward ending hunger and poverty in the developing world," he said.

Delegates from corporations involved in agriculture said they backed efforts to liberalise trade, but were criticised for sidestepping the issue of subsidies for their own sector.

Activists complained rural markets for products and services are too often distorted by government largesse to business.

"Subsidies are killing the livelihood of developing world farmers. We need these subsidies removed," said Indian delegate Vandana Shiva, representing women's groups on the panel.

Britain said on Tuesday it was pushing for a reaffirmation of a timetable, agreed at World Trade Organisation talks in Doha last year, for rich states to increase market access to farm products, particularly from the poorest states, by 2004.

A British official said there were many ways of improving access, not just by lowering trade barriers but also, for example, by helping producers meet European quality standards. He cited an example of helping Ethiopians export their coffee at a premium price by getting it certified as "organically grown".

One European official said the increase in US subsidies since Doha had caused something of a "crisis of confidence" among developing countries that the target would be met and said a reiteration of the pledge in Johannesburg would be worthwhile.

A senior US official said his country was in favour of eliminating trade subsidies within the United States within five years. "But the major hang-up here is not the US but the European Union. The US is not interested in doing it unilaterally," a senior US official said.

South African Trade Minister Alec Erwin said this was a "spurious argument" since under Doha nations agreed to phase out trade barriers through multilateral negotiations.

Erwin said he did not expect major developments on the trade front at Johannesburg, but hoped the meeting would "keep the momentum going forward".

- REUTERS

Johannesburg Summit