Posts tagged…Agriculture
“Sensitive” farm quotas revealed
Thu, Aug 14 2008Details are starting to emerge of the expansion in import tariff-quotas in the EU that might have conceded included in a Doha deal. They are large numbers by any measure, because the EU now comprises 27 middle and high-income economies.
The global tariff-quotas—open to all suppliers—would have been:
- Beef: 290,000 tonnes
- Sheepmeat: 42,000 tonnes
- Butter: 69,000 tonnes
- Cheese: 79,000 tonnes
- Sugar:…
Read more…Next steps for agriculture agreements
Wed, Aug 13 2008The WTO's Doha Round of trade negotiations did not 'collapse'; they failed. The failure was not caused by the disagreement over the Special Safeguard Mechanism. The poor quality of the proposed agreements reflected much deeper problems that might also have caused the collapse of consensus. The Doha enterprise had priorities that were no longer aligned with the commercial realities of world…
Doha defeated by contrary goals, rear-view mandate
Sat, Aug 02 2008Joseph Francois argues the Doha Round was strangled by an outdated agenda and unworkable principles, including the MFN rule. We're better-off burying our mistakes, he argues, and moving on.
"In a sense, developing countries are collectively asking that food prices go up and down at the same time. The inconsistency reflects divergent interests across the newer, non-OECD members of the WTO. It also…
Go back? Go forward? Take a powder and lie down?
Fri, Aug 01 2008Well…the third of these is not an option except, possibly, in Europe where dispirited WTO delegates can drift off to the beach for the summer holidays. Simon Evenett—to whose work I've recently refered—is not at the beach, it seems. He has prepared a very timely paper for VoxEU.org on the best way to manage the collapse of the Doha negotiations.
David Brooks: The Farm Bill
Wed, May 21 2008"My colleagues on The Times's editorial page called the bill 'disgraceful.' My former colleagues at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page ripped it as a 'scam.' Yet such is the logic of collective action; the bill is certain to become law…" extract from: Talking Versus Doing - David Brooks - New York Times…
Obama makes Bush look good
Fri, May 16 2008On farm subsidies at least. Here's the "Change" guy again arguing for more of the same
"I applaud the Senate's passage today of the Farm Bill, which will provide America's hard-working farmers and ranchers with more support and more predictability… This bill is far from perfect. I believe in tighter payment limits and a ban on packer ownership of livestock… But with so much at stake, we cannot…
WTO’s explanation of the 08-02-08 Agriculture text
Tue, Feb 19 2008The compromise draft issued by the negotiating group chairman is more than a ‘text’: after 7 years, this is, for the first time, an attempt at coherent proposals couched in the language of an agreeement. This summary, prepared by journalists in the WTO’s Information Division, makes the text almost comprehensible.
The main purpose of this note is to walk you through the revised draft text…
WTO agriculture proposals probably fall short of substantial improvements
Sat, Feb 09 2008After six years of negotiation, the latest compromise from the Chair of the negotiating group is a complex package whose main strengths are that it includes ‘across the board’ cuts in bound rates of duty on agricultural imports and an effective elimination of export subsidies. Still, border barriers are so high that these cuts look unlikely to bring about the ‘substantial improvements in market…
Why market access matters to developing countries
Sat, Feb 10 2007
Just before the September 2003 Cancún Ministerial Conference of WTO, the Australian National Farmers’ Federation commmissioned me to write a pamphlet for the Cairns’ Group Farm Leaders’ meeting on the importance of market access to developing country gains in the Doha Round of trade negotiations.
Although it’s now more than three years old, and the trade data is a little dated, the analysis…