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ON May 6
I was one of five international panelists at the 16th
annual meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable
Development, together with Ambassador Piragibe dos
Santos Tarrago of Brazil, Dr. Christ Leaver of Oxford
University, Prof. He Mauchun of Tsinghua University and
Dr. John Pender of the International Food Policy
Research Institute (Ifpri). We discussed the role of
technology, international trade and market access in
promoting and sustaining agriculture and rural
development.
In the
same meeting, a representative of the Australian
government said they maintain a “robust science-based
biosecurity system” to protect their country from pests
and diseases, and that they acknowledge that the strict
quarantine measures they impose present serious
challenges for developing countries to enter their
markets.
I find
that statement downright hypocritical. Technical
barriers are often abused as disguised obstacles to
trade, and Australia is not a novice to such practices.
The
current trade between the
Philippines
and Australia highlights this point clearly. For
decades,
Australia
has effectively prevented Philippine exports,
particularly mango, bananas and pineapples, from
entering the country by applying unreasonably stringent
sanitary and phytosanitary standards.
For
instance,
Australia
allows the entry only of decrowned pineapples, rendering
them uncompetitive, because without the crown,
pineapples last for only a day. And while our mangoes
meet the high standards of Japan, Australia allows only
mangoes from Guimaras to enter its market.
Until
now, Australia has successfully banned Philippine banana
imports by postponing the issuance of an Import Risk
Analysis year after year. It is also no coincidence that
Australia has an influential group of banana lobbyists,
which created a “banana fighting fund” in 2000.
There is
a need to expedite the process of identifying whether
technical barriers are used to bar trade. The current
system where each country sets its own standards and
does its own assessment—thus effectively acting as
prosecutor-judge-and-jury—is unacceptable. An
international tribunal that can objectively ascertain
whether such technical measures are indeed legitimate
should be set up.
Prof.
Mauchun, an agriculture trade expert, said the current
level of aid is “far from the commitments, far from the
needs and far from the donors’ capacity.”
I
support that notion. For the last two decades, global
aid to agriculture has fallen by 66 percent, dropping
from $11.5 billion in 1987 to $3.9 billion in 2005. Had
the Monterrey Consensus of 2002 been honored, Official
Development Assistance would have grown from $55 billion
in the 1990s to $75 billion in 2006—a large chunk of
which should be allotted to agriculture, where most of
the world’s poor resides.
Many
developing countries would have less need for aid if
they were allowed to strengthen their agriculture
sectors and compete fairly in the international market.
The
Philippines,
for instance, was a net exporter of agriculture products
before its accession to the World Trade Organization,
with trade surpluses of $157 million a year. This is a
simplistic comparison of trade surplus before and after
WTO accession, without taking into account other factors
that affected the Philippines’ trade balance. But the
point is, several developing countries, when allowed to
globalize on their own terms, can generate their own
funds necessary to boost agriculture production—reducing
the need for aid.
While
assistance is very much welcome, its benefits could only
go as far as the level of fairness the international
trade regime facilitates. Agriculture productivity may
increase because of aid, but its gains would not be as
potent without fair trade. Domestic and export subsidies
would still make agriculture products from developed
countries cheaper. And we would not be able to fully
benefit from increasing agriculture production if the
markets of the developed world remain close to our
exports. |
