WASHINGTON: US and European cotton subsidies will only be reformed if the stalled Doha Round of trade negotiations are revived and produce a deal, a WTO official said yesterday.
"If you ... are worried about where we are on cotton, worry and care about state of the (Doha) round, because this is not going to move unless and until the round moves," Crawford Falconer, chair of World Trade Organisation agricultural talks, said.
The Doha round was suspended in July amid finger-pointing over subsidies and tariff levels for farm goods.
Officials from four African nations that have spearheaded a WTO initiative to reform cotton trade - Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali - were in Washington this week urging rich countries to halt trade-distorting subsidies.
Fifteen million farmers in Africa, the visiting officials said, depend on cotton to make a living. Developing nations' subsidies push down world cotton prices, they complain, and threaten farmers' precarious livelihoods.
"National income has been reduced; small farmers' income has dropped significantly" due to subsidies from the US, Europe and Turkey, Choguel Kokala Maiga, Mali's trade minister, told a conference organised by the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council.
Cotton accounts for up to 70 per cent of farm export receipts for those countries, while the United States is the world's largest exporter.
The US maintains its subsidies don't have a long-term effect on world prices, but many academics, world trade officials and developing world officials disagree.
Crawford said the US subsidy programme "contributes to the problem" of low world prices. The cotton initiative is "one other reason we need to make this round succeed," he said. Falconer said it was still possible to restart Doha negotiations, but he was sober about its chances.
