A report recommending changes to Australia's controversial wheat export monopoly has weakened the country's position at last-ditch negotiations in the World Trade Organisation's Doha Round of trade reform, grower body Grains Council of Australia said on Friday.
The report, by industry research group Single Vision Grains Australia, was released on Tuesday on the eve of the Doha round of ministerial talks in Geneva. "Potentially, it could have really backfired on us in the WTO negotiations," said a spokesman for Grains Council of Australia, which represents most of Australia 35,000 grains growers.
The Single Vision report called for the removal of AWB Ltd's power to veto exports by potential rivals and for other traders to have the right to export smaller amounts of wheat. AWB is the former Australian Wheat Board, which operates a government-sanctioned monopoly on the export of bulk wheat.
Reports the Single Vision recommendations had splintered the Australian grains industry over AWB's export monopoly put further pressure on Australia's negotiations in the WTO talks this week, Grains Council told Reuters on Friday.
This was despite widespread support in the Australian grains growing industry and the government for the monopoly, it said. The monopoly is strongly opposed by Australia's wheat export rivals, the United States and the European Union, as well as by a large collection of private interests wishing to join the lucrative Australian wheat export trade.
Australia has defended its export system a significant sticking point in negotiations in the Doha Round by arguing that it equalises the trade standing of unsubsidised Australian wheat compared with massive subsidies paid by the United States and the European Union to their wheat growers.
Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile is in Geneva in a final bid to break the deadlock on farm tariffs in the final months of negotiations, with the WTO aiming to finish the Doha Round by the end of this year.
Grains Council of Australia this week described the Single Vision report as "divisive, wrong and inappropriate". "Single Vision Grain Australia has acted way beyond its charter in even commissioning research into the single desk (monopoly)," Grains Council Chairman Murray Jones said, pointing out that Grains Council established Single Vision for it to research new uses for Australia's grain.
Single Vision's claim that it was the "peak body for the Australian grains industry" was "false", he said.
Meanwhile, Australia's planting of winter crops is under way after recent fair rainfall in eastern growing districts. A spokeswoman for the Co-operative Bulk Handling Group said rainfall in Western Australia was still patchy and it was too soon to forecast crops with any certainty.
Governmental agency the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecast this week that Australia's wheat crop in 2006/07 would amount to 22.78 million tonnes, down by 9.2 percent on the previous season.
The size of the crop was downgraded because of late planting rains. Despite this, exports were forecast to rise by 10.3 percent to 17.33 million tonnes, valued at A$4.56 billion ($3.47 billion). Increased exports would require a slight drawdown from stocks after a bumper crop of 25.10 million tonnes last season.