Agriculture experts are of the opinion that the next month is an absolutely critical moment of decision for the World Trade Organisation. "If there is no significant movement in Hong Kong round of ministerial meeting, then there is a danger that the round fails and there will be no further agreements."
Talking to Business Recorder at Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam, they rejected the agreement on agriculture in its present form as it put the farming communities in developing countries at a disadvantage in competitive pricing by distorting trade terms.
They maintained that in theory the developing countries should have comparative advantage in farm trade having vast tracts of fertile land, abundance of labour and friendly climate.
But the developed countries with their high per capita income have heavily subsidised agriculture through a complex mechanism to protect their markets for agriculture imports.
They said this issue remains unresolved during the Uruguay Round, Doha Declaration and other ministerial meetings, including the Cancun ministerial meeting.
They said in all these meetings the key concerns of all developing countries, including Pakistan, were subordinated to industrial countries agenda of defending high levels of agriculture subsidisation.
They said next month's talks are aiming at opening of global markets to producers from the developing world but, despite a pledge by the G-8 group of industrialised nations to get a deal by the end of the year, expectations of agreement are low in view of EU trade commissioner's efforts to barter a deal by urging other WTO members to give some ground on tariffs, on industrial goods and liberalised trade in services, in return for efforts to bring down EU farm subsidies.
On the other hand there was a consensus of opinion that unless developed countries are willing to open their markets to temperate zone agricultural exports from developing countries and end tariff escalation against processed and higher value products, the benefits that developing countries will derive from globalisation could be limited.
In addition, South Asian countries face high tariff barriers in other developing countries' markets for key exports of agriculture and horticulture commodities.
To bring agricultural issues at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) pertaining to developing countries to the table during the current round many developing countries find it difficult to participate in the negotiations owing to their complexity but India, China and Pakistan's participation ensured that critical issues are brought on board of negotiations.
When asked to comment over the prospects of agriculture development in the country, they said to exploit full potential of agriculture in Pakistan, more participative research should be stepped up to meet the needs of the farming community. Modern farm management should also be introduced while subsidies should be reduced since many of these are meant for manufacturers of such fertilisers rather than farmers.
They also prescribed that the appointments and transfer on the basis of liking and disliking and on political consideration should be stopped forthwith both in agriculture research and extensions departments.
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