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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization, its credibility restored now its Doha Round is back on track, still faces a huge task to deliver on promises of freer global trade, officials admitted Sunday.
A last-ditch deal between the WTO's 147 members, setting out key guidelines for more work, prevented a potentially fatal failure for the round with its offer of deep cuts in rich power farm subsidies and more open markets to boost world growth.
"The multilateral trading system is alive after a period of doubt," said European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, whose pledge to eliminate the bloc's hugely controversial farm export subsidies helped pave the way to the pact.
The Doha Round, launched in late 2001 with the world still reeling from the suicide plane attacks in the United States, aims to lower barriers to commerce across the global economy. |
link
I am surprised that there doesn't seem to be a thread on this. This is good news, at least on paper.
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The El
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Urban Ranger,
If the negotiating member-states can pull it off, this will be great news for the developing world and their fragile export economies. Nothing worse than not having any money, wanting to support your own country by buying domestic goods, but seeing American or European agricultural products priced cheaper and having to play a part of the problem that your country faces in the first place. I read about this yesterday and smiled.
Plainly,
El
P.S. - Is this thread just being overlooked or do you people genuinely not care?
Last edited by The El on 02-08-2004 at 00:43
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The El
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Hueij,
It's all part of the process.
A lot of people make the mistake and believe that the governments of these developing countries also subsidize their farmers and that the competition is therefore fair. But that's wrong. When countries in Latin America or the Caribbean borrow from organizations such as the IMF, they have to abide by those counterproductive structural adjustment procedures (SAPs), some of which include lowering tariffs on imports and not subsidizing your own country's agriculture industry. So, from the very start, the loan is made under certain conditions that don't allow these infant industries to grow.
Albert and I had this discussion before. Say, Jamaica borrows from the IMF. The money would actually be of good use if Jamaica was allowed to raise its tariffs for a specified period of time, then lowering them to allow competitive trade. They would then, at least, have time to build up their domestic agriculture industry. But this isn't allowed. Forget that we here in the United States use the same reasoning when we raise tariffs to protect our infant industries. They're not us.
Overall, people think the borrowing helps but it doesn't. It just creates an endless cycle of borrowing. You have to borrow to pay the loan back! Then you have to borrow to pay that loan back! And it goes on and on and never stops.
I'm not anti-IMF, by the way. However, some of its SAPs need to be done away with to level the playing field. Only then will trade between the developed world and the developing world be fair.
Respectfully,
El
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VetLegion
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Chemical Ollie, I think that is quite impossible. The food shortages I mean.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Boshko
But you are wrongm very very wrong. It will translate directly in to higher third world farm earnings. Farmers across the third world are going bankrupt in record numbers and then selling out to the AgriCorps, a fairer tariff/subsidy regime would help with this. |
Family farmers cannot compete with AgriCorps on the same grounds.Even western AgriCorps can have an extremely high production for extremely low costs. Western AgriCorps will be forced to raise their efficiency -which shouldn't be too difficult as soon as they'll have the motivation to do so- to try competing against third world AgriCorps. Since very little manpower is needed in modern agriculture, it's not like the wages will make a real difference: the difference will come from the soils and infrastructure.
Family farmers in the third world will continue to be ****ed by the system. They'll continue to be uncompetitive wrt AgriCorps. Only that their competitors will stop being only European and American Agricorps, they'll be Argentinian, Canadian or Chinese as well. Great 
quote:
So?
Everyone in Third World countries will benefit. |
If the local AgriCorps are daughter companies of western ones, most of the money they'll make will go back to the West. The third world countries will only have the small wages the few employees will make. South America used to provide bananas to the US this way; it's not like the populations and the countries have benefited much from it.
So, family farmers in the thrid world remain ****ed, family farmers in the first world become ****ed, and this is what you say?
quote:
What you're standing up for is one of the worst sides of Globalization. What's happening now is that third world countries are being forced to open their markets to be flooded with subsidized First World farm products which is causes massive problems for Third World farmers and you're proposing we stand by and pay good money via taxes to keep this process going?!?! |
You don't know what I'm standing for.
In fact, I am all for a change in European and American agricultural policies, in helping family farms find a niche (high quality, presumably organic products), in which they'll be viable without being in the same arena as the agricoprs.
Once family farms are made viable, I'm all for suppressing the subsidies going to the AgriCorps, because they are nothing more than corporate pork.
I'm all for a responsible development of agriculture in the third world, especially in Africa where the conditions are the most dire.
However, the belief that market forces will solve the problem by themselves, once the rules are the same for everybody, is a pure fallacy. If the market forces are unleashed, they'll do as they always did: they'll crush the weak and crown the strong.
My belief is that the agricultural development in the third world should be monitored by individual States and an international programme, that helps in the creatioon of infrastructure and organization. Without pressure by the market forces. Only then will family farms across the world be viable.
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Bosh
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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:33
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quote:
Family farmers cannot compete with AgriCorps on the same grounds. |
Well right now, 3rd world family farmers compete on less than even grounds, even ground would be an amazing improvement.
quote:
Western AgriCorps will be forced to raise their efficiency -which shouldn't be too difficult as soon as they'll have the motivation to do so- to try competing against third world AgriCorps. |
And increasing efficiency isn't happening anyway?
quote:
Family farmers in the third world will continue to be ****ed by the system. |
They'll be ****ed a whole lot less than they are now.
quote:
If the local AgriCorps are daughter companies of western ones, most of the money they'll make will go back to the West. The third world countries will only have the small wages the few employees will make. South America used to provide bananas to the US this way; it's not like the populations and the countries have benefited much from it. |
Right now what is happening is third world countries are being flooded with subsidized food that farmers can't compete with which makes them sell out to agribusinesses that mak foods (like say cocoa) that can't be grown in the US and thus don't have to compete with subsidized agriculture or deal with tariffs. But the problem is that this has happened so much that the prices for Third World export agriculture have gone down at the same time that the flood of subsidized imports are driving down the prices of staple crops. Things are bad and getting worse.
If it wasn't for the subsidies then these problems wouldn't exist to the same extent. Right now agribusinesses main success in the Third World is because of subsidies that result in production in the Third World being shifted to cash crops, so its really surreal to argue that getting rid of the subsidies would increase this process (which is probably inevitable anyway unless a lot more things that trade regimes get changed.
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So, family farmers in the thrid world remain ****ed, family farmers in the first world become ****ed, and this is what you say? |
Yup. Third world farmers getting ****ed less is definately worth not sending money down the hole into the pockets of the handful of First World family farms. Like I said, cry me a river.
quote:
However, the belief that market forces will solve the problem by themselves, once the rules are the same for everybody, is a pure fallacy. If the market forces are unleashed, they'll do as they always did: they'll crush the weak and crown the strong. |
Of course. Market forces always do that. But right now you have market forces ****ing Third World farmers AND government forces ****ing them. Having just market forces ****ing them would be a huge improvement.
quote:
My belief is that the agricultural development in the third world should be monitored by individual States and an international programme, that helps in the creatioon of infrastructure and organization. |
So?
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:33
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quote:
What, precisely, is wrong with this? |
This isn't wrong per se, but the consequences are. Today's agrisubsidies are corporate pork which have the nice side effect of making our family farms viable. We're not talking some inhuman figures here, we're talking about millions of people whose life decency depends on the subsidies (the subsidies complete their income: they're not paid to do nothing, but instead they're paid enough for their work).
If we brutally stop the agrisubsidies in the west, it will completely destroy the life of those many people. Now, if we could make it possible for the family farms to be on another arena than agricorps, we could stop the corporate pork without threatening the livielihood of millions.
Some people here (probably Boshko) maysay that I think only of the western family farmer, and not of the third world family farmer. It's not true.
I just think that the liberalization of agricultural trade, if done without precaution nor responsibility, will bring nothing to the thrid world family farmers (since even they can't compete against AgriCorps), and will bring misery to first world ones.
And for some reason, I do not support bringing sudden poverty to millions 
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01-08-2004 21:23
Anyway I'll start caring when they get down to specifics rather than ambiguities.
) I noticed that products from the US where a lot cheaper than the same products made in Ja....
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