Brazil President Urges Rich Nations To End Farm Subsidies

[Judi Lynn]

Source: AFP

Brazil President Urges Rich Nations To End Farm Subsidies -AFP
04-20-081417ET


ACCRA (AFP)--Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday renewed his appeal to rich nations to end farm subsidies and open their markets to the developing world.

Lula was speaking in the Ghanaian capital Accra ahead of the opening of the 12th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

"The rich countries should end agricultural subsidies to their farmers and they should open market access to agricultural products from the developping world," Lula said.

He also called on developed countries to transfer their agricultural expertise to the developing world to enable poorer countries to produce the crops they need in sufficient quantity.

"It is not fair that more than one billion people consume less than the necessary calories and protein for our survival," the Brazilian president said.


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[AndyTiedye]

1. Haven't Nearly All Food Prices Risen Well Above The "Support" Levels by Now Anyway?

[HamdenRice]

2. Biggest under-reported story -- Brazil is using the WTO against the west

I know this is heresy on DU, but in fact the rules of the WTO are not that unfair to the developing and poor countries. The problem is that poor countries don't have the resources to enforce the WTO rules. It's like criminal law: in theory, they treat the rich man and poor man the same, but your outcome really depends on whether you can afford to pay a lawyer.

Brazil, in one of the most important and under-reported stories today, is using the WTO rules against the west, litigating to force the rich countries to live by their own rules.

Lula may end up doing more to end poverty in the third world then all the aid programs provided by the rich countries in the last 50 years.

It's a pretty fucking brilliant thing he's doing and he doesn't get much credit for it because most people don't understand how the WTO works.

[Zynx]

10. This is absolutely true. Brazil won a case recently on something or other

in the WTO. It is not rigged against poorer countries. It is actually far better than what existed previously with GATT.

[JDPriestly]

3. No! No! No! In many "developed" countries, farm subsidies

are actually essential environmental safeguards. The elevated areas in the Alps of Austria, for example, could turn into huge environmental problems if it were not for the farm subsidies to the families who maintain the hillsides and woods. Even in our country, subsidies used to encourage environmentally friendly rotations of crops. We are now moving toward a monoculture of corn with a minimum amount of other crops mixed in. That is very bad for the soil.

[robcon]

5. What bullshit.

Those excuses for subsidies have been exposed as spin and bullshit for years. Protecting the farmer means cutting out 3rd world producers from the first world.

[JDPriestly]

12. My point is that, for example, in areas of Austria,

the only way to keep areas cultivated and properly cared for is provide financial support for people who live in those areas. If the areas are not farmed, not in inhabited by people who have lived there for generations and who have developed environmentally friendly ways of life, those areas will be (and are and have been) exploited in ways that are environmentally disastrous for the whole society. Thus, used correctly, subsidies in developed countries protect the environment.

If people in underdeveloped countries have surpluses that they need to sell, they should export the surpluses to countries in which people are starving. They should not be dumping their surpluses on our country. I really don't want to buy Chinese garlic, etc. I have no idea whether the things I buy from other countries were grown in environmentally safe, much less environmentally friendly, places. As much as possible, I buy food grown locally. I am very wary of the all corn all the time diet. It is bad for you, just plain bad.

Besides, people who live in rural areas in developed countries enjoy their culture and have the right to maintain their culture and their farming traditions. There are still lots of family farmers in the U.S. They struggle, and they should be subsidized. The beautiful rural cultures and traditions in Europe are extremely endangered.

I'll bet you would be the first to scream if you knew what would happen and what is happening to indigenous peoples in underdeveloped countries who have tended their land but who now are impediments to growing the food that countries like Brazil and other underdeveloped countries want to export.

[msongs]

7. you should see the movie "King Korn" for truth about corn farmer welfare nt

[robcon]

4. This is a statement that all of the 2nd and 3rd world countries should make.

Subsidizing local agriculture is a shameful practice that should have ended decades ago.

In the U.S. the sugar quotas are a disgrace. It keeps out more efficient producers of sugar, like Brazil, from the U.S. market for sugar. The EU is probably the worst offender with subsidies, although it has a lot of competitors.

[rayofreason]

6. My country 'tis of thee....

...sweet land of subsidy, of thee I sing!

Lula is spot on! Farm subsidies in rich countries serve to undermine farmers in poor countries where agriculture is the may economic activity. Why should an African with a small plot of land try to raise a crop when subsidized imports make it impossible for him to make a living? If we want to help poor countries, especially in Africa we and the EU should end farm subsidies. Instead we should subsidize more agricultural research and transfer of know-how to developing countries. For example, research into terra preta and extension programs based on that research should be expanded so that more of the Amazon basin can be returned to its pre-Colmbian state of intensive, sustainable agriculture on a large scale.

[jwirr]

8. When a subsidy results in closing down small farmers in other nations

it is wrong. Too bad there is no way to support our own farmers allowing for cheap food in our own country while supporting the local farmers in places like Africa so that they can deal with starvation in their own nations. The goal should be to make each country as self sufficient as possible using their own local products.

[kas125]

9. Except that our farm subsidies mostly go to people who don't need them

instead of helping local farmers. Bill Moyers just did a show about that very subject - http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04112008/profile.html

[jwirr]

13. I know. I was raised in Iowa - subsidies helped to run smaller farmers

out so the big corporate farms could take over. How I wish we had a good time machine that could take us back in time with the knowledge we now have. It could have been so different.

[Hannah Bell]

11. Why should basic foodstuffs be global commodities?

Let every region support & develop its own ag sector to strenthen regional markets, & quit playing politics with food.

I don't like dumping US grain in the 3rd world to destroy their markets & ag sector.

Neither do I want the US to become dependent on imported food, & more farmland turned into subdivisions & strip malls because its more "profitable". Nor to make food more oil-dependent (transportation costs) than it already is, or more dependent on the global traders like cargill, adm, that already monopolize so much of it.

[robcon]

16. I say you are the one playing with politics and food, Hannah Bell.

Leave politics out of food production... Kepp subsidies at zero, and let the most efficient farmers sell their produce.

The current system results in mega contradictions: e.g., rice being produced in the California desert, as the paddies are created by enormous subsidies for agricultural water. Total waste, except the farmers love the money.

The current system results in double the price of sugar in the U.S., as the wasteful Florida sugar cane producers pay off politicians in both parties for the quotas.

Your recommendation is, to put it charitably, aggressively stupid, Hannah Bell. You call it 'playing politics' to put up barriers to farmers, and calling that same system 'strengthening regional markets' at the same time (with those same barriers????)

The world is better off - and better fed - if the most efficient producers produce the food. The only hope for economic growth for the third world is to become less dependent on agriculture as an occupation (it's a depressing fact that 40-50% of some countries' populations are involved in agriculture - they'll never advance unless it takes fewer people to feed them. You don't have to get to the U.S. standard (about 2% of people are farmers who feed the other 98%, plus a significant part of the rest of the world) to advance, but it's important to break the current logjam created by artificial barriers, subsidies, quotas, tariffs and regulations that prevent the third world from advancing.

[Xithras]

17. Except that those Florida sugar growers and desert rice paddies support our economy.

Your logic is the same one used by people to justify offshoring manufacturing and tech jobs. The world is better off if the most efficient producers produce food/computer software/tools/electronics/cars/toys/books/etc. The PROBLEM with that argument is that the most "efficient", when applied to the darwinian free market globalist trading system that YOU are proposing, is synonymous with "cheapest".

And cheapest, throughout history and across cultures, usually goes hand in hand with worker exploitation, environmental degradation, and a rise in corporate power.

Lula is no hero. The man should be shot for what he's allowed to happen to the Amazon. This is the same man who said that the rainforests are only going to be protected if the first world nations BUY them. Otherwise, they'll level the whole damned thing and turn it into farmland.

Some freaking hero.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. -cough- PROEX -cough- PROEX -cough-

Brazil has already been hammered by the WTO for illegal subsudies on behalf of Embraer.

[newfie11]

15. I guess there is no farmer on this forum.

Yes the price of corn and wheat has gone up tremendously. So has the price of fertilizer, fuel, seed, equipment, and farm land. If the commodities players quit screwing around with the price of grain and it falls you are going to see a lot of farmers hurting BIG TIME. There is no guarantee that the prices now will be the prices when the crops are in. There is guarantee that what is planted will produce. In my area(SW Nebraska panhandle) the problem is with water, lack of it. We get less water to use every year. This water is from Wyoming reservoirs holding snow melt. Less snow less water. It has been several years since my land has produced a bumper crop or even an average crop. I have trouble even getting seed to sprout due to the dry soil and no rain. You take the subsidies away from the small farmer and the market falls the only thing left is the mega farms. I'll survive, my place is paid for and I can grow my own food and meat. I don't see very many young farmers coming up to replace all us old farts, again mega farms are in the future. Good luck.

[Xithras]

18. Despite the abuses, subsidies are the only things keeping small farmers in the game.

I live in the San Joaquin Valley, literally across the street from a dairy, a cornfield, and a peach orchard. Do mega-corporations exploit subsidies? Yes. Do some corporations use those subsidies for export crops that don't benefit Americans? Yes. Do small and family farmers ALSO use them to keep prices down, and to grow crops that would otherwise be unavailable due to marginal profitability? YES.

Keep in mind that when people like Lula argue for abolishing subsidies, what he's REALLY saying is: "Abolish subisidies so that food prices will go UP, and Brazilian farmers can make more money by exporting to the U.S."

In the end, the result is fewer American farms, fewer employed Americans, and more expensive food in the grocery store.

In my opinion, food is one of those areas where EVERY government should be very protectionist. I couldn't give a damn whether Brazilian farmers can export to the U.S., or U.S. farmers can export to Brazil. What I care about is keeping Americans employed and keeping American food cheap. If subsidies allow that to happen, so be it. All other concerns are secondary.