Issue: February 2005 Behind the Lines Cover Story Letters Coming Events Short Takes Stories Crops     Seedbed     The Lynch File Research Letter From Europe Rural Roots   Contact Us

Canada's WTO negotiator carries a heavy burden Can Agriculture Canada's Steve Verheul help engineer a deal that works for all Canadian agriculture sectors while adhering to a "framework" agreement accepted last July that has agreed to tariff reductions? by BARRY WILSON If there is one Agriculture Canada official who will earn his salary in 2005 (and let's charitably assume there are thousands who will), Steve Verheul is the odds-on favourite. He is Canada's chief agricultural negotiator at World Trade Organization (WTO) talks that face a make-or-break year. And he has riding on his efforts the hopes, and often the fears, of tens of thousands of Canadian farmers who increasingly realize that their success rests as much on international trade deals as it does on their own efforts or domestic policy. This year almost certainly will not end the WTO negotiations launched at Doha, Qatar, in 2001, but it is expected to pass some milestones that will set the stage for a successful completion in 2006 or more likely 2007. By the end of July, negotiators from 148 countries are supposed to have made progress on setting out the principles of a new WTO deal, including the beginning of serious negotiations on the amounts of cuts in trade-distorting domestic support and protective tariffs and a deadline for elimination of all forms of export subsidies. By December, negotiators are supposed to have made enough progress to give trade and agriculture ministers gathering in Hong Kong the outline of a potential deal that needs some political decisions. Verheul's unenviable task is to try to produce a deal that works for all Canadian agriculture sectors while adhering to a "framework" agreement accepted last July -- a framework agreement that critics warn contains several time bombs for Canadian interests. First, the framework requires domestic support cuts that could lock in a support advantage for high subsidizers such as the United States and the European Union. Second, the framework agrees for the first time to make the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) monopoly an item for negotiation. While Prairie farmers with a vote spoke in late 2004 during CWB elections by filling four of five open CWB director seats with pro-monopoly candidates, the United States and the European Union are gunning for the monopoly and Canada has agreed to give them a forum. And third, the framework agrees that in a push to open more market access, all tariffs must be cut in any deal. The government and supply management leaders have been taking comfort from the fact that the July deal removed the explicit requirement that over-quota tariffs essential to supply management protection must be cut. However, the framework says all tariffs will be reduced and foreign negotiators say that necessarily includes over-quota tariffs. It seems like an old movie. During the last world trade talks, supply-managed farmers were assured until the end that Canada could save the quantitative import restrictions contained in the old rules, even though it was clear to negotiators, politicians and supply management leaders that quotas would be replaced by tariffs which would inevitably be reduced. Last December, the Senate agriculture committee worried that the same scenario is unfolding. "The committee is concerned that Canadian producers under supply management may not be prepared for the potential reduction in tariff barriers," said the committee report. It is for Verheul to try to square the circle of government framework concessions and farmer expectations that government assurances will be met. Don't begrudge him his salary. BF Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture. © copyright 2005AgMedia Inc.. top back