The Demise of Doha?

It was just reported about an hour ago that the Group of 4 meetings in Germany, which were tasked with trying to save the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, have just collapsed. While this is not surprising, it is nonetheless disappointing. After the suspension of talks a year ago, this was seen as a last-ditch effort to revive this round of WTO negotiations, which was touted as the round intended to bring the benefits of liberalized trade to the developing world. As has been the case all along, agricultural protectionism was the hurdle that the participating nations – US, EU, Brazil and India – were not able to overcome. Now one can only expect the blame game to ensue, in which each nation points its finger at the others’ perceived lack of willingness to cut agricultural subsidies.

So all of you who were holding on to the hope that Doha talks would finally get back on track, it’s not looking too good.

In a very well-timed piece in the Washington Post, it was reported yesterday that US farm subsidies, unsurprisingly, tend to only benefit large, white-owned farms, while small farms (many of which are black-owned) receive none of the largess. The idea behind farm subsides is to help farmers who need assistance in coping with detrimental shifts in the agricultural economy, such as changes in weather and world food prices, but in reality they are going to large commercial farms that can probably deal with such factors on their own and those who are most vulnerable receive no support.

Although I don’t know this first-hand, I suspect that small farmers in Mississippi don’t have well-paid lobbyists in Washington, but I’m sure that the large commercial farmers do.