Leaders: Farm Subsidy Hurts Market 
By DINA KRAFT
Associated Press Writer

August 27, 2002, 4:31 PM EDT

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Leaders from the developing world
criticized multibillion dollar farm subsidies in the West on Tuesday,
saying they distort the world market and endanger the livelihoods of
poor farmers.

The $311 billion in annual subsidies make it impossible for poor farmers
to compete and also damage the environment, leaders said at the U.N.
World Summit on Sustainable Development.

"They are killing our farmers," Benin's Agricultural Minister Luc-Marie
Gnacadja said.

Delegates from the developing world want an agreement that would reduce
and eventually eliminate subsidies. But the summit is unlikely to
resolve the issue, which is seen as yet another example of the growing
divide between rich and poor nations.

Gnacadja said Benin's cotton, one of the most viable crops in the small
West African nation, is being priced out of the world market by
subsidized U.S. and European cotton.

"There is no level playing field today between the two cultures of
farming," said M.S. Swaminathan, an agriculture expert.

"One is high subsidy, high capital, high technology (and) very large
farms, the other is small farmers and very little support ... You are
witnessing a very great dichotomy," Swaminathan said.

A senior member of the U.S. delegation said the Bush administration was
in favor of eliminating export subsidies within five years and phasing
out other subsidies in agriculture as well, although a timetable had not
been set.

In July, the Bush administration said it was prepared to seek cuts in
farm subsidies as part of a new global trade agreement and called for
global tariffs on farm products to be cut.

But President Bush signed into law a new farm bill in May that is
expected to cost $190 billion over 10 years, $83 billion more than the
cost of continuing current programs.

Experts say the subsidies are also economically inefficient because they
can translate into artificially high prices for consumers.

Developing countries complain that the same Western nations that
champion the free market system elsewhere in the world unfairly protect
farmers in their own countries.

John Evans, a top international trade union official, urged swift
action, calling farm subsidies, "the most damaging form of
subsidization."

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is urging
wealthy countries to divert $8 billion a year, a small percentage of the
money they spend on subsidies, to fight hunger in the developing world.

Evans said if that world hunger could be slashed in half by 2015 if that
money was matched by the developing world.

An estimated 800 million people go hungry every year.

"Big subsidies bind resources not available for development assistance,"
said Hartwig de Haen, FAO's assistant director-general.

The money could spur economic growth where it is most needed, and donor
countries would be able to focus on investment, instead of pouring money
into aid such as emergency food assistance, he said.

"Where hunger rules peace cannot prevail," Swaminathan said. 
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

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