Washington's proposed farm policy overhaul threatens to worsen the plight of Africa's cotton farmers by providing fresh assistance to U.S. producers, African ministers have said.
Speaking after a mid-March two-day World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting on cotton, representatives of cotton producers said they believed the 2007 farm bill, an umbrella law that will set most U.S. agriculture policy for five years, could boost aid to American cotton farmers by up to 66 percent. This would make it even harder for Africa's 15 million cotton farmers to compete with subsidized crops from the United States, the world's largest cotton exporter, selling 80 percent of its cotton abroad.
"The new U.S. farm law is counterproductive, it will aggravate the situation," Benin's trade minister Moudjaidou Issifou Soumanou said, flanked by ministers from Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Mali, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The ministers said they were still analyzing the potential impact of the U.S. law, but said early readings suggested the bill would boost the amount of heavily-subsidized cotton leaving the United States.
U.S. cotton subsidies totaled $4 billion in fiscal 2006, which ended in August, and the government estimates they will decrease to $2.8 billion in fiscal 2007. African governments and farmers blame the subsidies to cotton producers in rich nations by their governments for flooding the market, driving down global prices and causing poor farmers to run at a loss.
Brazil has already successfully attacked the U.S. cotton program, winning a landmark 2004 verdict at the WTO that caused the United States to repeal certain export and import subsidies on cotton. But other U.S. assistance programs remain in place.
Domestic supports on farm goods are a sticking point in negotiations over a new WTO trade accord, known as the Doha round, which was launched five years ago in the Qatari capital. Washington has said it can only cut subsidies so far until others, such as the European Union, roll back import duties and create new markets for U.S. farm products overseas.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, who suspended talks over the pact last in July 2006 because of a deadlock between major parties, said progress on a global deal was the best prospect for Africa's cotton farmers. "The single most important contribution we can make to solving this cotton problem is to finish the Doha round as soon as possible."
Washington Post
To ease your site search, article categories are at bottom of page.
