By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Nov 14 (IPS) - Agriculture has long been the "ugly duckling" in the process of international trade liberalisation as the sector has been largely excluded from market access measures that readily benefit industry and services.
On average, import tariffs on agricultural products are eight times higher than they are for industrial goods.
Tariffs can reach 1,000 percent, as is the case of the tax Japan imposes on price imports. In some countries, the entry of dairy products are hit with tariffs as high as 300 percent.
Based on such imbalances, the Cairns Group, the bloc of 18 countries that follow a policy of limited or zero subsidies for agriculture, presented the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with a proposal to improve market access for farm products.
The Cairns Group introduced the initiative this week during sessions of the WTO Committee on Agriculture, which is engaged in negotiations to drive forward the process to liberalise the international accord that regulates the sector's trade.
The talks are attempts to reach commitments to reduce protectionism in the areas of market access, domestic support and export competition.
The Cairns proposal on market access includes "deep cuts to all tariffs using a formula approach which delivers greater reductions on higher-level tariffs."
It also covers tariff peaks and the elimination of the tariff escalation that imposes higher import taxes on products with greater added value.
As far as import quotas, the anti-subsidy bloc is pushing for progressive increases in volume as the highest tariffs decline. In this way, quantitative restrictions would no longer have an effect on trade, according to a Cairns source.
The Cairns Group document covers a proposal to ensure market access for all developing nations, "including the least developed and net food-importing countries."
Such special and differentiated treatment would provide "a stimulus to their economic growth to facilitate rural development and poverty elimination," says the bloc.
In particular, the Cairns initiative calls for "the fullest liberalisation of trade in tropical products and for products of importance for the diversification of production to replace the growing of illicit narcotic crops."
The Cairns Group had presented a proposal in June about export competition, and in September another initiative on internal support measures.
This week's proposal on market access bears the signatures of nearly all of the bloc's members, save Canada and Fiji. Sources from the group denied there were any discrepancies with Canada, which last June presented an individual initiative on the same matter before the WTO.
The difference lies in that Canada places emphasis on the expansion of import quotas and on immediate market access. The other Cairns nations, meanwhile, see those points as specific aspects of a larger problem and focus their demands on tariff reduction.
As one of the key actors in agricultural trade talks, the United States has already presented a proposal that includes the problem of market access "in terms nearly equal to those of Cairns," said the bloc's source.
The European Union, considered a leader among protectionist governments and trade blocs - alongside Japan, South Korea, Norway and Switzerland - has not proposed any initiative before the WTO on the matter.
In 1999, the world's industrialised nations spent a combined total of 361 billion dollars on subsidies for agricultural production and export.
The negotiations at the WTO, which are aimed at eliminating or curbing government interventionism by wealthy countries, conclude their first phase this year, which consisted of the presentation of initiatives, such as those by the Cairns Group.
The second phase, to begin in March 2001, involves substantive work in evaluating the proposals and adopting a programme of work that is to include setting a timeframe for finalising agricultural trade negotiations.
The Cairns Group is made up of Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Fiji, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay.:
