September 7, 2003	Sunday	Rajab 9, 1424

ISLAMABAD: Developing countries, including Pakistan, should put up a demand at the Cancun summit that under the garb of market access developed countries should not press for reduction in duties for products whose imports into developing states will adversely affect the domestic food security situation, the livelihood of farmers and rural development, says a Pakistani researcher.

This demand is also important for the future agriculture development of developing countries, including Pakistan, to enable them to protect their non-traditional agriculture products from the unjust competition faced by the cheap subsidized imports from developed countries, says Aftab Alam Khan, an expert on agriculture issues.

Talking to Dawn on the ongoing negotiations on agreement on agriculture (AOA) at Cancun and its impact on Pakistan, he predicted that Pakistan could become an exporter of non-traditional products after certain period of time.

Mr Khan said above all this demand was important to protect the dumping of products that would adversely impact on the small-scale farmers in the country and the government had no plan to provide alternate livelihood mechanism for the affected farmers.

“Pakistan is an agro-based country and majority of our agriculture production is meant to serve the domestic needs. Around 90 per cent of our farmers are small farmers. Of these, about 90 per cent produce important crops like wheat and rice,” the expert says.

Mr Khan says that around 70 per cent of the agriculture part of the Cancun draft are copy of the joint statement of the European Union and the United States, which only protected their mutual interests.

The special safeguard (SSG) was available to 38 countries, mostly developed in the AOA, he said and added in the current negotiations process majority of developing countries demanded the elimination of this SSG for developed countries and special safeguard mechanism (SSM) only for developing countries.

Developing countries also demanded special safeguard mechanism, which is a short-term mechanism, to protect their items from surge in imports.

He said Cancun draft addresses the SSM inadequately and there was no explanation about it. The demand to eliminate the SSG of developed countries has also not been addressed properly.

Currently, in Pakistan most of the agriculture products are bound at 100 per cent tariff, four products — wheat, rice, sugar and tea — at 150 per cent, and betel nut at 200 per cent.

“We should be very clear as to how much reduction we could afford easily in the tariffs of our agriculture products to provide adequate protection to our small farmers,” he said.

For developing countries, he said, Pakistan should support the Uruguay formula as a special and differential treatment, while developed countries should reduce their tariff through the Swiss formula.

The Cancun draft failed to address these problems in a meaningful manner. Moreover, the draft is inadequate in providing due protection to the agriculture of developing countries from the unjustified agriculture support of developed countries.

Peace clauses that immunize the cheap exports of developed countries from any challenge mechanism at the WTO are scheduled to be eliminated by 2003, according to the current AOA. However, developed countries still want to continue this imbalance in the agreement. — MZ