WTO round is threat to food, nature say farmers

By Robin Pomeroy

GENEVA (Reuters) - Farmers from Europe, Africa, Asia and Canada warned the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Tuesday that a trade deal being negotiated this week could ruin small farmers, harm the environment and increase hunger.

On the second day of a week of crunch talks seeking a breakthrough to rescue the 'Doha' trade liberalization round, groups representing small-scale farmers told WTO chief Pascal Lamy the proposals were dangerous and unacceptable.

"Further trade liberalization will benefit large-scale corporate farming and multinational traders at the expense of small-scale, vulnerable farmers, hindering agricultural and rural development in countries which need it most," the farm groups said in a joint declaration handed to Lamy.

The Doha round aims, among other things, to open markets for farm exports from developing countries and limit the huge subsidies paid to farmers in Europe and North America which skew the market against agriculture in the developing world.

The coalition of farmers from the wealthy and highly subsidized European Union and producers from some of the world's poorest countries, in east Africa, showed battle lines at the Geneva talks were not based on purely 'north' versus 'south'.

Pekka Pesonen, head of EU farm lobby COPA-COGECA, said the big winners of the proposed liberalization would be large-scale farm exporters, some of which are in the EU, but mostly in Brazil, Argentina, the United States and Australia.

While not against liberalization per se, he said the rules had to allow for subsidies and tariffs to be used to protect livelihoods, the environment and local food production.

European farmers have long been protected by high import tariffs and subsidies totaling more than 40 billion euros ($63.7 billion) a year.

PRODUCERS SQUEEZED

But they are concerned the EU could bargain away too much in reducing import tariffs in the WTO talks while the Africans fear their domestic producers will be squeezed out of their home market by powerful foreign exporters if their tariffs come down.

"We fear that the proposals currently on the table in the WTO will undermine the ability of many countries throughout the world to provide their citizens with urgently needed food security and stability," said the statement, which was also signed by farm groups from India, South Korea and Sri Lanka.

John Mutunga, head of a Kenyan farmers federation, said reforms to global trade that would cut high tariffs on value-added goods would greatly help Kenya, which exports crops like tea and coffee in a less profitable, unprocessed state.

But he said developing countries, which have suffered greatly from global food price spikes over the last two years, had much to fear from the Doha round.

"We support the WTO ... but developments are likely to take away livelihoods, especially in developing countries," Mutunga said. "Food security cannot be solved through the free market."

Under the WTO proposals, countries will be able to shield some of their agriculture from the impact of tariff cuts with developing economies and especially the very poorest nations being offered more protection.