Asian farmers, among the poorest in the world, understand their European colleagues' hunger for subsidies -- but not at the expense of fair trade for their own produce.
And they are determined to make their case ahead of WTO talks on the sensitive issue next month.
Three lobby groups representing more than 260 million farmers in the EU and Asia came together last week for their first organized exchange of views in the run-up to next month's WTO meeting.
Delegates to the two-day meeting in Brussels, which ended Friday, agreed that farming was not just a trade issue but was vital to the lifeblood of any society.
But lavish subsidies under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy unfairly skew world trade in food, according to Raul Montemayor, the Philippine president of the Asian Farmers' Group for Cooperation (AFGC).
The Brussels meeting would help tackle Asian prejudices that European farmers are the "bad boys" of world trade, as the subsidies did play a role in safeguarding food security and livelihoods, he told reporters after the talks.
"But they should do it in a way that will not harm farmers in countries like in Asia, where the farmers are usually small-scale [and] have very little support from their governments," Montemayor said.
Subsidies in the rich world drove down prices of produce in the developing world and sent many poorer farmers into bankruptcy, he said, calling for a "win-win" solution for all sides.
"We are trying to look for a formula where farmers in Europe can continue with the kind of system that they have, which may include such subsidies, but in such a way that this does not result in harm to farmers in Asia, for example."
The question is daunting: how to reconcile the needs of a grandmother in Vietnam bent double sowing rice seeds with those of an EU farmer employing state-of-the-art machinery on vast fields of grain.
But, the lobby groups argued, farmers in both regions share a desire to protect their food supplies and rural ways of life.
Isami Miyata of Japan's Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives stressed the WTO should respect the "multifunctionality" of farming. Agriculture was too special to be treated like cars or financial services in the liberalisation debate.
Many Japanese rice farmers, long protected by a myriad of regulations, were now feeling the pinch from foreign imports, Miyata complained.
Observers, however, have pointed to a glut in supply and a shift in the Japanese diet towards Western staples like bread and potatoes as being equally to blame for the plight of Japan's rice farmers.
And, free-trade advocates argue, liberalization can transform the fortunes of a desperately poor country. Vietnam has gone from food shortages to being the world's second largest rice exporter in little more than a decade.
Japan is scheduled to host an informal WTO meeting on Feb. 10 and Feb. 11 in Tokyo, as the Geneva-based WTO battles to meet a March 31 deadline for an accord on a framework to free up farm trade -- the most sensitive liberalization issue of all.
Several EU and Asian governments, notably France and Japan, want to make agriculture a special case in the WTO negotiations which they say should be exempt from full liberalisation.
But critics argue that the most effective weapon against grinding poverty in the developing world is a level playing field in agriculture, which in Europe, the US and Japan remains heavily protected. The EU last month proposed to transform poor nations' access to its farming markets in the WTO talks, but was accused by British aid charity Oxfam of producing a "vacuous public relations document."
The Brussels meeting was hosted by two EU farming lobbies, the Committee of Agricultural Organizations and the General Committee for Agricultural Cooperation.
The AFGC comprises farming and co-operative organisations from India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
RSS