EARTH SUMMIT: Developing countries call for scraping of farm subsidies
JOHANNESBURG, 27 August (IRIN) - Developing countries at the Earth Summit in
Johannesburg on Tuesday pressed for a commitment from the world's richest
nations to scrap billions of dollars in farm subsidies, which they say undermine
their market access.
With close to 13 million people in Southern Africa facing severe food
shortages, delegates attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
criticised what they called trade-distorting subsidies used in Europe and North
America.
"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," Togolese delegate, Mensah Todzro, told IRIN.
World Bank figures suggest that giving developing countries more access to
rich markets could earn them about US $150 billion a year.
"We sit here talking about sustainable agriculture and families are
dying," said Lesotho Environment Minister Lebohang Ntsinya. "We appeal
to you to put your policies right."
The United States came under fire for a new Farm Bill that boosted subsidies
to domestic farmers. The development agency Oxfam pointed out that US wheat,
rice and cotton farmers would increase their earnings by up to 50 percent,
allowing them to further undercut produce from poor countries.
Measuring subsidies as a percentage of farmers' total income, European Union
subsidies topped the chart at 35 percent, while the United States climbed to 21
percent from a low of 14 percent in the mid-1990s, Oxfam said.
"We're subsidising farmers in the north to the tune of US $1 billion a
day to preserve the quality of life of those in the north. Whereas there is only
negligible support for poor farmers in Africa and the rest of the developing
world. The already strong in this case, are only getting stronger,"
environmental professor from the University of California, Pedro Sanchez, told
IRIN.
"If we could just take a week of the US $1 billion a day that American
farmers are getting and distribute to farmers in the developed world, we would
see the end of hunger in sight," he said.
South African Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin also slammed the US Farm
Bill as a step "backwards", while developing countries also saw a new
European Union (EU) agriculture plan as "falling short".
Erwin told a press briefing South Africa was pushing for a reaffirmation of a
timetable, agreed at the World Trade Organisation talks in Doha, Qatar, last
year. That commitment was for rich countries to increase market access for farm
products from the poorest by 2004.
But the opposition of the United States to such targets was "obviously
problematic," he said.
Both the United States and members of the European Union delegations at WSSD
reiterated their commitment to helping agriculture in the developing world, but
refused to comment on the issue of farm subsidies.
"We're entering an economic slowdown and it's always harder at such
times for countries to open their markets," one EU delegate told the
conference.
[ENDS]
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's
IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs 2002]
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