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INAUGURATING AGRICULTURE MINISTERIAL, OAS SECRETARY GENERAL URGES OPENING UP OF INTERNATIONAL AGRICULTURAL TRADE

Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General José Miguel Insulza opened the Fourth Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture, in the city of Antigua, Guatemala, yesterday, amidst concerns over major challenges facing agriculture in the Americas and the rest of the world, triggered by climate change and energy-related scientific discoveries in agriculture.

Organized by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA)—an OAS specialized agency—in conjunction with Guatemala’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food, the meeting brings together ministers of agriculture and experts representing the 34 member countries. It is also being held as part of the July 22-27 “Week of Agriculture and Rural Life in the Americas,” within the framework of the Summit of the Americas process.

In his remarks, Insulza commented on climate change and other challenges and, on the topic of international agricultural trade, said subsidies that developed countries provide for their agricultural sector, along with protectionism in the developed world, were affecting developing nations.

“One important area of concern is the opening up of international trade. Agriculture has been at the heart of almost all disputes in the international trade negotiations and remains the main obstacle to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Development Round,” the OAS chief declared.

“All we are asking is for free access to markets. We are confident that such access would make international production and trade more efficient and would make agriculture a key platform for regional development and a tool to benefit the poorest of the hemisphere’s citizens,” he added.

The OAS Secretary General noted that the countries of the region have an important role in finding solutions to this problem, as the effect of subsidies in developed countries means that an increasing proportion of trade by developing nations is conducted among themselves. “And the fact is that imposed by developing nations on one another are still very high,” he said.

Insulza also touched on the potential that diversification of production holds for agricultural development, in order to address other important needs of the region, especially as regards developing alternative and renewable sources of energy that carry minimal impact on the environmental.

He also spoke about the “trail that Brazil has blazed in this regard by allocating a portion of its sugar cane production to ethanol production. In so doing, Brazil has become the world’s second largest producer of this bio-fuel.” Secretary General Insulza explained that “the production of ethanol is no threat to food production, because less than one-fifth of the 340 million hectares of arable land in Brazil is put to use, with sugar cane accounting for only three million hectares and an even smaller percentage is used for the production of ethanol.”

Insulza emphasized the strategic value of agriculture to the region, recalling that in Latin America and the Caribbean primary agriculture accounts for around 11% of the gross domestic product, almost four times the world average of about 3%, and six times the figure for developed countries, where agriculture contributes on 1.8% to the GDP.

“Agricultural products make up 40% of regional exports and are clearly our main category of exports. The agricultural sector is therefore very important for our countries and must therefore be developed,” he concluded.







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Reference: E-181/07