Farm Bureaus Call for Trade Focus

July 19, 2002

State Farm Bureau presidents have called for international trade talks to focus on export competition, market access and trade-distorting domestic support programs in the international trade forum of the World Trade Organization. The Farm Bureau officials met this week in Washington.

"Farm Bureau is a strong advocate of fair and open trade," they said in a statement. "The agricultural trade negotiations must produce results that place U.S. producers in a fair competitive position in relation to their foreign counterparts both in the U.S. market and abroad."

They "strongly" supported efforts to focus on the three trade aspects and urged the Bush administration to take "an aggressive position in the world trade talks. Farm Bureau believes that a successful outcome from these negotiations represents our sector's best opportunity to address unfair trade practices in agriculture, both at home and abroad, and to open new markets for our exports."

The statement continued, "We urge our negotiators to seek reductions in disparities in the levels of export subsidies, tariffs and trade-distorting domestic supports that currently exist. It is essential that be accomplished in order for U.S. farmers and ranchers to support the final agreement. A commercially meaningful package that truly creates a level playing field must result from the agricultural negotiations. American agriculture deserves no less."