WTO Upholds Ruling Against US Cotton Subsidies

[Robbien]

GENEVA, March 3 (AFP) - The World Trade Organisation on Thursday upheld a ruling ordering the United States to dismantle subsidies paid to US cotton farmers because they are illegal under global trade rules.

A WTO appeals body largely rejected an appeal lodged by Washington last October against the original decision favouring a Brazilian complaint against the subsidies, according to a copy of its ruling.

It recommended that the WTO's dispute settlement body "request the United States to bring its measures, found in this report ... to be inconsistent with the agreement on agriculture and the SCM (subsidies) agreement, into conformity with its obligations under those agreements".

The original WTO ruling in the dispute issued in September 2004 said the subsidies were illicit and called on the United States to dismantle them within six months.

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=21396

[madrchsod]

1. good now we can get rid of our cotton industry

hell might as well..we don`t have any textile mills left to make finished cotton goods. next it will be our soybean industry....

[Robbien]

2. Last year our taxes subsidized big cotten growers a total of $2.7 Billion

Our cotten export business is only $3.4 Billion.

Appears we have a 80% taxpayer funded subsidized cotten industry. That is not an industry, it is just a transfer of US treasury monies into pockets of the corporate elite.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Cotton is heavily subsidized in Arizona

And virtually all the proceeds go into the pockets of a very few, very rich "landowners." In fact, many do not own the land, but rent it at rock-bottom rates from, you guessed it, the government (aka, you and me).

It is subsidized because we don't need all the freakin' cotton that's grown, and we sure don't need it in Arizona, where it still sucks up way more water than it's worth.

Don't get me started. Don't even get me started. . . . .

[Moderator]

4. kick to combine

[emad]

5. US illegally paid $1.5bn to farmers

Ashley Seager
Friday March 4, 2005
The Guardian

The United States illegally subsidised its cotton farmers to the tune of $1.5bn (£790m), the World Trade Organisation ruled yesterday.

The WTO's appeals court backed the trade body's decision last year to uphold Brazil's complaint that the subsidies, paid to 25,000 cotton farmers, breached world trade rules and depressed global cotton prices.

America had appealed against the ruling, claiming it was too harsh. Brazil had complained that it was not harsh enough.

The ruling has been seen by campaigners as a significant victory in efforts to scrap $300bn of subsidies lavished on farmers in the developed world. It is a key part of the Doha round of talks to reform world trade rules.
he decision was expected since the appeals body rarely overturns a WTO decision.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1430075,00.html

[Tansy_Gold]

6. Rottin' cotton

On the northeast corner of the intersection of 51st Avenue and Buckeye Road in Phoenix, Arizona, is a large, and apparently abandoned (more or less) cotton gin.

For those of you unfamiliar with cotton processing, the gin is the place where the picked cotton bolls are separated from the seeds and hulls. The "lint," or raw cotton fiber, is then packed into 300# bales; the seeds are pressed for oil, the hulls sold as bedding for farm animals.

In Arizona, cotton is usually picked in the late fall -- November-December -- and during this time the gins are busy, with neatly wrapped bales of cotton stacked in their yards awaiting shipment to mills.

A good harvest yields ~3 bales per acre; it's not a crop for small farmers.

At the 51st Ave & Buckeye gin, several hundred bales of cotton line a chainlink fence screened with green plastic shadecloth. They have been there for a year or two, or more, just rotting in the Arizona sun, and the recent rain, too.

That's what happened to at least some of our subsidized crop.

I guess we can be thankful it isn't a food crop rotting in the sun while people starve.

[HereSince1628]

7. Is this "conservation" at work, is cotton keeping the soil red?