Brussels, 15/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - A group of farm organisations representing more than 165 million farmers in all five continents (represented in the EU by the Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the EU and the General Committee of Agricultural Cooperatives in the EU, COPA-COGECA) has delivered a message to G4 negotiators (the EU, United States, Brazil and India) to express their 'keen concern' ahead of the Potsdam summit. The signatories write that 'at present the trade talks are being dominated by the interests of a few large agricultural exporters. The special role which agriculture plays - providing food security to local populations, maintaining viable rural communities and looking after the world's precious land resources - is being totally ignored. Furthermore, negotiators should remember that the Doha Round is a 'development round', not a 'market access round'. The vital need for developing countries to be able to build up their agricultural base, in order to ensure food security and the livelihood of their rural population, is being totally ignored.' The signatories accuse the Chair of the agricultural negotiations at the World Trade Organisation, Crawford Falconer, of making 'virtually no mention of non-trade concerns in the papers he has just published on how he sees the way forward in the negotiations. Instead he focuses on the interest of food exporting countries such as the Cairns Group, the US and G20 by proposing an average tariff cut of over 50% and totally inadequate measures to enable countries to protect their more sensitive or special products.'
The signatories set out a list of priorities for the agricultural arm of the world trade talks under the Doha Round, commenting that all WTO members musts have the right to meet the non-trade concerns of their citizens including concerns about food security, food safety, the environment, rural communities and animal welfare; special and differential treatment for developing countries must be taken fully into consideration to meet the real needs of resource-poor, vulnerable and small-scale farmers and ensure food sovereignty; there must be a balance between the efforts made by WTO members on domestic support, export competition and market access; farm tariff cuts must be well below those proposed by Crawford Falconer in a way which reflects the position of all WTO members, not only those of the G20 and the USA; tariff capping is unacceptable; each country must be allowed to designate an appropriate number of sensitive and special products and these products must be treated with a great deal of flexibility; special safeguards must be maintained for both developing and developed countries; and there must be reinforced rules to protect geographical indications. (eh)