Fair Trade Groups Ask Congress to Oppose Bush Trade Proposal

Proposal Would Continue Market Deregulation, Unsustainable Overproduction and Dumping of Agricultural Commodities

Washington, DC - Family farm, religious, conservation and other fair trade organizations sent a letter to key members of Congress calling on them to resist a specific Bush Administration proposal that would change rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to shift U.S. farm payments from one category to another. The letter charged that the proposal would do nothing to curtail costly overproduction and dumping of agricultural commodities onto world markets below the cost of production, and would perpetuate the current agricultural market deregulation policy that hurts family farmers in the U.S. and around the world.

The groups