Jun 22, 1998

AGRICULTURE: FAO PROMOTES COMMON STANCE IN TRADE

Santiago, Jun 18 (IPS/Gustavo Gonzalez) -- Latin America and the Caribbean form a mosaic of interests in the area of agricultural commerce. One of the challenges faced by agriculture ministers in FAO's 25^th regional conference in the Bahamas is coming up with shared criteria with a view to next year's WTO negotiations.  

The WTO's (World Trade Organisation) negotiations on trade in agriculture and rural development are the key issues on the agenda f this week's regional ministerial meeting of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which ends Saturday in Nassau.  

Delegations from the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean kicked off the technical level meeting Tuesday, preparatory to the political phase that got underway Thursday with the participation of the ministers of agriculture.  

FAO's regional office, based in Santiago, Chile, drew up a report, "Multilateral Discussions on Reforms of Agricultural Commerce", which it submitted to the ministerial conference.  

The text is aimed at preparing governments in the region for the 1999 WTO negotiations on further liberalization in agriculture.  

The regional director of FAO for Latin America and the Caribbean, Gustavo Gordillo, said the problems of agricultural trade did not strictly follow North-South lines, but rather cut across industrialised and developing nations.  

That phenomenon can be seen in Latin America, he pointed out, where the four members of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - as well as Chile and Colombia belong to the Cairns Group, which advocates the liberalisation of trade in agriculture.  

The 15-member Cairns Group, made up of nations whose economies depend to a large extent on exports of agricultural commodities, also includes industrialised countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and members of the disappeared socialist bloc such as Hungary. The South is represented in the group not only by the six Latin American members, but also by Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Fiji.  

But just as the region includes major exporters of grains, beef, dairy products, apples, grapes, coffee, sugar and bananas, it also encompasses a number of net importers of food.  

The latest available statistics, from 1996, show that Latin America and the Caribbean had a trade surplus in agriculture - in other words, overall revenues from sales of foodstuffs outstripped imports.  

Nevertheless, there are still serious food shortages in the region, where 10 countries - including Haiti, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Suriname and Guatemala - are participating in special FAO food security programmes.  

The agriculture agreement of the WTO mandates negotiations beginning 1999 for further reforms in the sector.  

The FAO report warns that other items will likely be incorporated into the WTO negotiations, and that there is no guarantee of the depth and reach of the phase that opens next year.  

But it stresses that Latin American and Caribbean nations must clearly conceive of the importance of the multilateral negotiations in order to set their own regional, subregional and national objectives.  

As of April, only three Latin American countries - the Dominican Republic, Peru and Uruguay - had made presentations to the WTO Agriculture Committee evaluating progress made on the Marrakesh accords. 

Most of the evaluations have come from industrialised countries, with little contribution from the South, and Latin America in particular, with respect to participation in WTO deliberations.  

The World Food Summit organised by FAO in November 1996 highlighted the relationship between trade in agriculture and food security, a problem that is present in Latin America and the Caribbean.  

Compliance with commitments to cutting tariffs in agricultural trade and changes in the global food markets are questions on which each country can take a stance, often based on national interests. FAO also recommends that special attention be paid to so-called non-commercial aspects such as food security and environmental conservation.

By providing assistance to developing countries in coming up with a common stance towards the multilateral negotiations in agriculture, FAO hopes to ensure that the reforms eventually approved by the WTO will contribute to combatting the serious problems of hunger and malnutrition in the world.  

The UN agency stresses that the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and other regions of the South must go to the negotiations well-informed, in order to participate in the debates on an equal footing and obtain the best possible bargaining position.