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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
Werner-Schuster-Haus
Land policy: quick privatisation with disastrous consequences
Out of work
Cooperation with Jordan
Water is not like oil: there is no substitute for it
'Communities in the One World' Service Agency one year on
A change of course
"We must show that supporting independent NGO work is worthwhile"
US government: new money for fighting AIDS
Change to a more just agricultural trade not in the offing
Germany supports peace process in Sri Lanka
03/2003
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14th Berlin Conference on Globalisation
Change to a more just agricultural trade not in the offing
No fewer than 800 million people in the developing countries are malnourished. Most of them would be helped if they could benefit from the subsidies that Japan and the European Union provide for dairy cows alone. This provocative remark began the 14th Berlin Conference on Globalisation, held on January 29, which was hosted by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) together with InWEnt and the German Evangelische Entwicklungsdienst (EED), or Protestant Church Development Service. Matthias Berninger, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, took up the point. It really was a scandal, he said, that farmers in the OECD countries received direct support totalling US$ 300 billion per year while development assistance was declining ever further. If the world trade round agreed in Doha became, as promised, a development round and did not degenerate into a mere free trade round, the South could be given a "double dividend": reduction of agricultural subsidies in the North and structural aid for rural areas in the South.
Martin Scheele, of the European Commission's Directorate-General Agriculture, called for competition and more market forces in agriculture. He said the direct payments to European farmers must – as aimed for by Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler – be decoupled from land use and production. That inefficient production methods were maintained solely to pocket bonuses was untenable.
To the surprise of many, Franz-Josef Feiter, the representative of the German and European Farmers' Association, agreed basically with the previous speakers. But he said it would cost no less if support for European farmers was granted on the basis of such criteria as efficiency and care of rural areas. Unlike his association's earlier position, he claimed, it was now hand-in-hand with the European Commission in advocating successive liberalisation of the world agricultural markets in favour of the developing countries. In contrast, Rudolf Buntzel-Cano, the EED special representative for world food affairs, pointed out that the countries of the South were "extremely frustrated" because the North repeatedly rejected proposals for development-oriented agricultural trade.
Johannes Wendt
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