The Rural Voice, 2002-07, Page 8QUICK -FIT
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4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
How do you like being the bad gug?
Keith
Roulston is
editor and
publisher of
The Rural
Voice. He
lives near
Blyth, ON.
Canadian farmers have been
rightly outraged recently about the
unfair advantage they face since the
new U.S. Farm Bill increased
subsidies to our competitors south of
the border. What we're now facing
here is what many small countries
have had to deal with for years.
While free trade proponents have
undermined opposition by arguing
that free trade will raise living
standards in Third World countries,
in many cases it has been devastating
to the farming economies of these
small countries while providing new
markets for rich countries.
When Jamaica got into financial
trouble in the early 1990s, it applied
to the International Monetary Fund
for assistance. The IMF demanded
trade concessions in return for loans
including opening up agricultural
trade. In the intervening years
Jamaica's agricultural economy has
virtually collapsed.
With the opening of markets, milk
processors were able to buy cheap
milk powder, subsidized by
American taxpayers, at less than the
cost of local fresh milk. With no local
market, milk prices dropped for
Jamaican raw milk, yet still the
American powder kept coming in.
The U.S. used the World Trade
Organization to kill the preferred
trade status Jamaica used to have
with Britain for its bananas. The U.S.
doesn't even produce bananas but
U.S. companies control much of the
world's banana production.
Exports of .U.S. pork to the
Caribbean have brought local
producers to the verge of ruin.
The Ivory Coast in Africa imports
subsidized pork from Europe at
prices that are three times lower than
local production costs.
Activists in the Philippines predict
100,000 jobs will be lost there this
year unless their government takes its
agriculture out of the WTO. Oxfam, a
British non-governmental aid
organization, says imported Amer-
ican corn undermines local farmers. It
points out the average subsidy to
American farmers of $29,000 (even
before the latest hike) is 100 times
the income of a Filipino farmer.
Kenya's government recently
slapped a 60 per cent excise duty on
imported dairy products because
fresh milk prices had plummeted
because processors began using
imported milk powder.
Ethiopia decided not to get
involved in WTO talks. "If we
allowed zero or low tariffs on maize
or wheat, our markets would be
overrun by cheaper products from
South Africa or other countries,"
explained Girma Bekele, general
manager of the Ethiopian Grain
Trade Enterprise.
On the other hand, "Even if
barriers to trade are lifted, our
capacity to compete in developed
country markets or with developed
country products is limited by price,
technology and products."
In fact even the kindness of
strangers is undermining local
farmers because of tonnes of food aid
pouring into Ethiopia to feed millions
in the northern highlands where there
isn't enough food. But in good years
when there is rain, fanners in the rest
of the country can produce a grain
surplus that would help feed these
people.
It feels much more comfortable to
be the victim, as Canadians are with
huge U.S. subsidies, than the victim-
izer, as we are in international trade,
but we're as guilty as the other rich
nations of what's happening in these
other countries. Canada is part of the
Cairns Group which strongly opposes
the idea of self-sufficiency in food
production, arguing instead that food
security is tied to the ability of people
to earn enough money to buy food.
"To the victors go the spoils", the
old saying goes and world trade rules
are being rewritten by the victors,
both countries and companies, to
make sure they stay victorious.0