Pressure on EU, US to cut subsidies

The G-20 alliance includes developing countries from all across the globe like India, China, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Egypt, who got together just before the WTO ministerial meet in Cancun, Mexico, last September, to take on the challenge posed by the EU-US grouping in agriculture.

Following the collapse of the Cancun ministerial meet, the CoA met for the first time last month with a view to arrive at some sort of a consensus on the framework for negotiations. The CoA decided to meet every month till July, by when, it hoped, it would be in a position to chalk out a rough framework.

Interestingly, it was during this meeting that the Cairns group and the G-20 got together and agreed to work in tandem to force the subsidising developed countries to eliminate or bring down their farm subsidies.

The OECD (organisation for economic cooperation and development) countries give more than $ 360 billion in agriculture subsidies every year.

While the interests of agriculture exporting members of the Cairns group and some members of the G-20 like India and China, who want to protect their their poor farmers from unfair competition, are very different, both want agriculture subsidies to come down.

“Because of this common interest, the two countries have decided to work together at least in the area of agriculture subsidies,” a ministry official said.

The second meeting of the CoA is scheduled to be held on April 20-23.