G20: Not representing farmers interests

30 August, 2005
Focus on the Global South, India
  1. The next Ministerial Meeting of the G20[1] will be held in an exclusive hill resort off Islamabad from 8-10 September 2005. The Islamabad meeting is important for several reasons. It follows the unsuccessful WTO GC (General Council) meeting in Geneva in July 2005. Pascal Lamy assumes office as Director General of the WTO from September and will begin intense consultations with groups such as the G20 for a Draft Hong Kong Declaration, which he will attempt to have ready by the next GC meeting in October 2005. Agriculture has the potential to make or break the Doha round and the G20 will play a central role in this drama.
  1. The emergence of the G20 before the Cancun Ministerial (2003) raised some hopes for a better deal for the third world but this has been belied since. A significant failure has been the inability of the G20 to fundamentally question the approach underlying the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) that privileges the export led model, permits protection in the developed north and opens markets in the developing south. Despite their rhetoric of representing third world farmers the group has failed to respond to the concrete demands of agrarian communities (on whose behalf they claim to be negotiating), get tangible commitments from the EU and US on the elimination of trade distorting subsidies and provide market access for commodities from the south.