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SEN.
Edgardo Angara Wednesday blamed prevailing agricultural
trade imbalances between rich and poor nations, stemming
from protectionism in developed countries, as the main
culprit that triggered the looming food crisis.
Angara
asserted that while agriculture is recognized as the
most vital industry to fight hunger and poverty, it is
also the sector with the highest level of trade
distortions.
Addressing the members of the Philippine Trade
Foundation Inc., Angara said the problem in agriculture
is quite serious and will affect the food-security
program and antipoverty campaign of the government.
“In the
Philippines, two out of three poor people live in the
provinces. Thus, a vibrant agricultural sector is
crucial to reducing poverty and improving global food
security,” said Angara.
He said
a high level of trade distortion exists in agriculture,
which has caused a long-standing imbalance between rich
and poor countries in international agricultural trade.
He added that the imbalance from the developed
countries’ protectionism has exacerbated the growing
food crisis.
He said
supporters of trade liberalization had a notion that
free trade will bring greater prosperity. However,
Angara said, the opposite happened, as developed countries or the
First World countries implemented protectionist measures
in their agriculture.
“They
have been asymmetric, opening up markets of developing
countries to goods from the advanced industrial
countries without full reciprocation,” he said.
“Our
wealthy neighbors
Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan all protect their native rice
farmers. Rice grown in Spain and Italy is aided by
European subsidies and protectionism. The US spends
billion subsidizing [its] domestic rice farmers,”
Angara added.
He said
the First World countries paid only lip service to free
trade as they forced
Third World countries to open their markets for their industrial goods,
and, at the same time, shut their markets to the
agricultural products from the
Third
World through various mechanisms such as tariff and
nontariff barriers.
“In
addition, contrary to World Trade Organization [WTO]
principles, they give their farmers huge subsidies,
which developing countries cannot afford, thus creating
an unfair playing field,” he stressed.
Angara
said the huge domestic support and export subsidies
provided by developed countries to their farmers
resulted in producing uncompetitive products from
developing countries.
As a
result of unfair trade,
Angara said
developing countries eventually became losers by turning
many countries from net exporters to net importers.
“The
Philippines used to be a net exporter of agricultural
products. Before the Philippines entered the WTO, it
enjoyed a trade surplus in agriculture, averaging at
$157 million a year from 1985 to 1994,” said Angara.
Upon
membership to the WTO in 1995,
Angara said the country’s export earnings grew by only 0.18 per
cent a year on average, while imports ballooned by 8.5
per cent a year.
Angara
was the Senate president in 1994 when the Senate
concurred in the ratification of the WTO as sponsored by
then-Sen. Gloria Arroyo. In response to the strong
warnings then of various groups that this move would
open the floodgates to unequal trade and ruin local
agriculture and industries, Angara’s group enacted a law
mandating funding for so-called “safety nets” for the
vulnerable sectors.
Angara
urged the implementation of the following policies to
rectify the imbalances now hounding agriculture:
•
Accelerate the elimination of export subsidies and
reduction of domestic subsidies of rich countries
• Cut
agricultural tariffs and tariff escalation
• Ensure
that legitimate measures are not used as technical
barriers to trade
• Exempt
special products from tariff cuts and institute special
safeguard mechanisms
Further,
Angara said multilateral agencies should help the
developing countries by giving complementary measures
such as funding agriculture.
“To help
boost the effectiveness of the existing aid, developed
countries and international financial institutions
should focus their development agenda on agriculture and
rural development,” he said. (With B. Fernandez) |
