ASA and a group of like-minded farm groups sent a letter this week to,  Ambassador Michael Froman of the Office of U.S. Trade Representative and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, to express concern regarding the negotiations currently underway in Geneva in preparation for the Ninth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference.

“We support the WTO, and we understand the value of the rules-based global trading system,” wrote the groups. “However, we believe that a Bali agreement based on the so-called ‘food security’ proposal from the Group of 33 (G-33) would represent a significant step backwards for the WTO and would make it much more difficult to reach a comprehensive Doha Round agreement.”

The group’s concern specifically addresses price supports in advanced developing countries that have the potential to distort trade.

“Support prices in several of those countries are now significantly above U.S. target prices, and studies suggest that they are exceeding by a wide margin the limits on domestic support to which they agreed in the Uruguay Round negotiations. Indeed, we see the G-33 proposal as an acknowledgement by those countries of their vulnerability to challenge under current rules.  As we understand it, the G-33 proposal would significantly weaken subsidy disciplines by exempting from aggregate measure of support (AMS) calculations price support regimes that are tied to domestic food aid programs,” wrote the groups.

A full copy of the letter can be downloaded here.

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