US offers further cut in farm aid, Brazil says not enough

Source: AFP

GENEVA (AFP) - The United States offered to cut its annual farm subsidies further by 2.0 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars in a bid on Tuesday to spur WTO talks forward, but Brazil said this was not enough.

"In exchange for an ambitious market access outcome, we're prepared to reduce our overall trade domestic support to 15 billion dollars," US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said.

The latest offer on the table marked a slight improvement from an earlier offer of 17 billion dollars.

Brazil, one of the key developing nations in the WTO talks, was unimpressed by Schwab's offer and said the US had to go further.

"It's a nice try but it's still too high," a member of the Brazilian delegation told AFP immediately after Schwab made the announcement in a press briefing.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080722/pl_afp/wtotradetalksusfarm;_ylt=AngIkKO_2kxp3U0g4eWeaT.yFz4D

Makes me wonder what it will take to make farming a decently profitable venture.

High insurance costs, rising taxes, along with this year's flooding, and voila, farmers aren't making much.

What will make farming a decently profitable venture is to remove legislation that favors factory farms over family farms, and take out the corporate middlemen who are the ones making the money, not the farmers.

I think any money given to farmers is shameful, whether subsidies for growers or quotas/tariffs on imports. The U.S. is the most productive agricultural sector in the world... 2% of the U.S. population feeds the other 98%, plus exports enormous amounts of food.

Lobbying and cozy relationships in farm states are the only reasons farmers get subsidized, IMO.

edit:spell

I often wonder when someone is going to have the guts to try to change this practice.

And I would be in favor or removing those. However there are many others that actually do good, both for family farmers and society as a whole, and we need to keep them.

If we remove our subsidies, quotas and tariffs, family farming will go the way the rest of our manufacturing sector, overseas, and the only farmers you have left will be the factory farmers, who, unlike family farmers, are not stewards of the earth and who will ruin the environment.

We need to be encouraging family farmers rather than trying to drive them into the ground.

is a good idea. Subsidies coupled with trade policies the World Bank and the IMF have caused many nations to become dependent on imported commodities instead of raising their own food. A couple of examples are Haiti and Mexico. New Zealand did away with subsidies years ago and they are doing better than with subsidized agriculture. From the Rodale Institute: “New Zealand agriculture is profitable without subsidies, and that means more people staying in the business: Alone among developed countries of the world, New Zealand has virtually the same percentage of its population employed in agriculture today as it did 30 years ago, and the same number of people living in rural areas as it did in 1920". There is an article about this at http://www.newfarm.org/features/0303/newzealand_subsidies.shtml

Are you willing to forego organic food, niche crops, and instead be fed genetically engineered food, from a limited selection, that has been raised on fertilizers, pesticides, and who knows what other chemicals? Are you willing to see the relatively few remaining farming communities and towns dry up and blow away?

Sorry,but the situation in New Zealand and the US is vastly different. Their farming sector isn't overrun with factory farmers, and they place a premium on a family farm structure. In the US, under it's corporate, corrupt capitalist economy, family farms aren't something to be valued, but instead to be destroyed. ADM, Monsanto and a handful of other large ag corporations want to be your sole food provider, and if it wasn't for the small farms, the family farms, you would be forced to eat whatever they sold you.

Sorry, but I don't want to see that happen, not just as a farmer, but also as a consumer. We've seen over the past few years just how poorly factory farms are at providing healthy food(salmonella, e-coli, etc. etc.) Do you really want to do away with our only healthy food alternative?

Besides, some of these subsidies are necessary. For instance take a look at the CRP program(Conservation Reserve Program). This pays farmers to grow trees, native grasses, etc. on marginal food growing land. Not only does this program encourage environmental restoration, but it also builds up natural windbreaks and such so that instead of dust from Kansas blowing into the east coast, the dirt remains where it's supposed to and we don't have a repeat of the Dust Bowl days.

Yes, there are many subsidies that are paying lots of money to factory farms with little benefit to the small family farmer, and we need to get rid of those. However simply eliminating all subsidies would be foolish, counterproductive, and ultimately a huge mistake for our society. Rather let us pick and choose what subsidies to remove, and keep the ones that allow small family farmers to continue to survive.

you statement that small town will "dry up and blow away". That is what is happening under the current system. Take our local area, West Central MN. The nearest town had five implement dealers, now there are none. Nearest place for JD parts 25 miles, CIH, 30 miles. Local school district is considering closing a small school in our nearby town and consolidating with another. They are putting an operating levy on the fall ballot cause they are not raising enough revenue to pay for the day to day operations. Ask any local milk truck driver how many stops he makes today versus ten or more years ago. They usually just stand there and shake their heads. How many young people are staying in the local communities after graduation? In ours, like many, most are moving to the city where the good paying jobs are. There is no future in the small town under our current system. Look at the average age of a farmer, around 55 years old. The kids don't want to deal with what they grew up with so they sell the place to the big guys who just keep getting bigger.

You speak of change in the system. It is not going to happen. Look at the fiasco that was called payment limitation in the recent farm bill. Money for projects that improved rural development was practically nonexistent. You cite organic production. Its hard to seriously discuss organic when the chairman of the House AG Committee (my rep I'm sorry to say) says (I paraphrase) that organic is akin to "hippie agriculture". It kinda detracts from the seriousness of the conversation. The change that is required includes not only AG policy but trade agreements and monetary policy.

Another point I disagree with you is in the CRP Program. In my opinion CRP and particularly IIRC CRP 23, the native grass program, is not a subsidy. A subsidy pays you for production, the CRP is paying as you say, to conserve acreage. However, when land is enrolled in CRP, it should remain in the program. No haying, grazing, or whatever. If you want it in CRP, then it stays in CRP.

Finally if the elimination of subsidies has benefited large producers at the expense of small ones, why has the number of farms in New Zealand remained steady since the programs were eliminated? Shouldn't the number have been reduced as, under your argument, there would be less small farmers? I urge you to read the article at the link I posted.

are two key ones. Food is just too basic to a country's security and sovereignty, to leave to chance. And farmers are hit harder by chance than any other vital natural resource--and face it every season. A spell of bad weather; a plague of pests or blight--and they're belly up, in one season, without government supports and loans.

The malefactor is BIG CORPORATE AGRICULTURE--corruption, lobbying, their takeover of the subsidies and other supports (tax write-off's)--resulting in items like Chevron Corp. owning millions of acres of rice production land in California, and not only getting billions in subsidies and tax write-off's, but also sucking up the water, and polluting water and ground.

Then BIG AG takes the surpluses and dumps them on the market, at cheap prices, in third world countries, literally to destroy local agriculture there. I saw a documentary about Jamaica a while ago, where U.S. Big Ag dumped cheap powdered milk on Jamaica's market, and bankrupted all of its domestic FRESH milk and dairy producers. They lost their farms, their livelihoods and are losing their knowledge (can't pass it on to their children), and the country lost food self-sufficiency. This tragedy was repeated with other products there, and it is repeated world over--throughout Central and South America, and in Asia and Africa.

There are also many OTHER reasons for protecting domestic food production. It's the best way to prevent being poisoned. It's the best way for consumers to know where their food came from, and what practices were used to produce it--and the closer to home the better. In France, for instance, they hugely subsidize their farmers, because the French will not tolerate poisoned, non-fresh, non-organic food. It is a cultural and dietary necessity.

I read an amusing story of British doctors visiting France to study the French health system. They were curious that the hospitals that they visited had no big refrigerators in their kitchens. "How do you keep your food fresh for your patients?" the British doctors asked. They got blank stares at first, until somebody finally understood and said, "We wouldn't think of giving our patients anything but FRESH food--right off the farm!"

That's why France subsidizes its farmers. It is a cultural value, a health value, a taste value--as well as a security issue.

One more thought on the security issue: What if you import a lot of your basic foods from a country that turns against you? The importing country then holds a sword over your head.

Food production--like clean water, clean air, forests, watersheds, seed- and bio-diversity, and (in the opinion of many countries in the world) other natural resources such as oil and mineral wealth--belong to everyone, and underpin the political and economic health, and the stability, of the country. A country is called a "country" because of farming. Cities didn't use to be included in that designation because food wasn't produced in the cities; it was produced in the "countryside." The country (farming) is the backbone of the nation. Your viability as a nation is dependent on the ability of the countryside to feed everyone. And that must be protected--subsidized, prevented from failing.

There are vital reasons to help farmers and prevent them from failing. What is NOT necessary--and, indeed, what is grievously damaging--is Big Corporate Agriculture, with its monopolistic practices (truly predatory in the case of Monsanto), its use of pesticides, its mono-culture, its destruction of small farmers, and its devouring of our tax dollars and complete domination of our government.

And not just because I am currently vacationing in Salvador, Brazil... nor am I saying that because my wife and daughter are Brazilian citizens either.

If Americans knew what I know, they'd abandon American bananas, oranges and other citrus and embrace Brazilian import crops (even in tough economic times!)

Tropical fruits (even when there is an American counterpart, like oranges or pineapple) are extremely sweet and delicious compared to US crops. If you try a Brazilian banana or orange, you'll likely swear off of American equivalents.

And I am not even beginning to discuss the REAL tropical fruits here... Passion Fruit (maracujá), Guava (goiaba), Mango (manga), etc. etc. etc.

Earlier this month, I was very privileged to pick some acerola fruit straight off of the bush at my cousin's farm. VERY sweet to taste!

One taste is all it takes to get Americans hooked... and, unlike American crops, Brazilian citrus rarely, if ever, need to be artificially sweetened. They're cheaper too... even when you add the import tariffs and duties.

MrBlueSky
Snohomish, WA
(currently reporting from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil)


:hippie:

Not just Brazil, but all the corporations of the world. None of them will be happy until those who live on and work the land are all living in rented huts.

The opposite is the case. We are subsidizing American farmers, giving money and favors to the richest, most successful farmers in the world. It's just politics... buying farmer votes, buying farm-organization endorsements, buying farm-organization campaign contributions.

There not a single genuine need among the vast array of subsidies for American farmers:
not price supports
not land set-asides
not quotas on imports
not tariffs on imports
not subsidized water rates (rice grown in the desert of the Central Valley of CA!)

Wasted money. Wasted resources. It's only politics.