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Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace/Coordination SUD Seminar (Washington,
DC, September 5-6, 2006) The Doha Round and
Trade in Agricultural Products Who are the losers
and what should be done?

Titre et logos Date
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• 1. Introduction
• We must further the development of agricultures
  and, to do so, create an environment that
  encourages agricultural producers to invest,
  innovate, and intensify...
• But we must see that we don't worsen the social,
  environmental, and food problems present in the
  different regions of the world and around the
  planet as a whole.
• The international community must agree on social,
  environmental, and food "terms and conditions" to
  put to or even impose on the economic actors. The
  definition of these "terms and conditions" must
  represent the focus of international negotiation.

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• 3 majors questions
• We will try to respond to 3 major questions
• What is the current state of the social,
  environmental and food issues related to
  agricultural production?
• What are the mistaken hypotheses that prevail
  today in international trade negotiations?
• On what principles could a new international
  agricultural trade system be built?

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• 1 - What is the current state of the social,
  environmental and food issues related to
  agricultural production?
• The social issue
• The environmental issue
• The food issue

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• 2 What are the mistaken hypotheses that
  prevail today in international trade
  negotiations?
• 1st error factor the quality of the statistics
  and the reliability of the models
• 2nd error factor the belief in the
  self-regulating ability of agricultural product
  markets
• 3rd error factor the belief in the 6th principal
  of the Washington consensus that claims that the
  more (international) trade there is, the more
  development there is.
• 4th error factor the ignorance of the
  complementary nature of local, national,
  regional, and international scales

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• 3 - On what principles could a new international
  agricultural trade system be built?
• Most NGOs and peasant organizations expressed
  their desire for the WTO negotiations as they
  appeared in June 2006 to fail. This desire
  signifies neither the renouncement of the
  principle of a multilateral system, nor the
  rejection of the WTO as an institution offering a
  multilateral framework for negotiation. The
  agricultures of the poor and weak countries,
  especially African ones, have suffered too much
  from free-market overkill by the IMF and World
  Bank and from certain bilateral agreements to
  renounce the principle of a multinational
  agreement.
• We propose some principles that could help found
  a new international trade system in the
  agricultural field. These proposals concern the
  national (or regional) scales and international
  scales.

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• 1 - Return to the recognition of national or
  regional (food) sovereignty
• Recognition of the right of countries that are
  victims of dumping policies to protect their
  markets
• Recognition of the right of countries to protect
  themselves from the excessive ups and downs of
  international markets
• Recognition of the right of countries to protect
  products of a strategic nature
• Recognition of the right of countries to grant
  preference to national and regional products.

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• 2 - Stabilization and regulation of international
  markets
• Reconsideration of all supports and elimination
  of direct or indirect support to exportation
• Organization of the agricultural markets of each
  sector and regulation of marketing in order to
  avoid imbalances that cause erratic price
  movements, which can be tragic for producers and
  consumers
• Rebalance of the relationships of power in the
  agri-food sectors, especially by bringing back
  one of the original principles of capitalism the
  antitrust law.
• Recognition of the social and environmental value
  of agricultural products, especially by
  establishing labels enabling traceability of
  products, as experienced on a small scale by fair
  trade.

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Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace/Coordination SUD Seminar (Washington,
DC, September 5-6, 2006) The Doha Round and
Trade in Agricultural Products Who are the losers
and what should be done? Henri Rouillé dOrfeuil
rouille_at_cirad.org Chairman of Coordination SUD,
national coalition of French NGOs

Titre et logos Date