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EcoFair Trade Dialogue Newsletter No. 1 – August 2005
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EcoFair Trade Dialogue is a new project carried out by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with Misereor and moderated by the Wuppertal Institute.
It is an international dialogue established on the current developments and conflicts surrounding agricultural trade negotiations within the WTO.
We as organizers are already looking back to two successful Expert Panel Meetings of the EcoFair Trade Dialogue held in Mexico (April 2005) and Berlin (June 2005).
Our Newsletter would like to introduce the general aspects as well as the first developments and discussions in the expert panel. It gives an overall outline on the current debate and the future plans of the project.
 EcoFair Trade Dialogue - addressing WTO failures and difficulties
Agriculture is one of the hottest topics amongst the WTO members, which culminated in the breakdown in Cancun at the sixth Ministerial Conference of the WTO (September 2003). No other subject demonstrates such extremely diverse interests and convictions in the WTO negotiations. No other subject has such a great influence in many countries in terms of national food security, specific cultural and ecological characters. Furthermore, it causes serious human rights violations in affected countries.
Conflicting interests occur between following countries: 1. developed and developing countries, 2. export-oriented and import-dependent countries, 3. countries with liberalized markets and countries with highly protected agricultural production.
Further conflicts exist between: 1.promoters of an ever increasing international division of labour and the advocates of a more decentralized economic order, 2. supporters of a large-scale, industrial as well as export oriented production model and those who favour small-scale, organic and subsistence farming.
These controversies have only been partly reflected by the trade policies of the WTO since the 1990s. Negotiators have failed to address a broad range of problems. The current trade rules initiated following consequences:
· agricultural trade policies have been shaped especially to the disadvantage of the majority of farmers in the South
· many developing countries had to give up market protection measures and have been at the mercy of cheap and often subsidized agricultural imports
· developed countries have managed to maintain their protection levels largely untouched
· the liberalization agenda has also contributed to a massive price decline and price instabilities for agricultural goods, increase in market concentration and industrialization of agricultural production at the global level
· trade rules do not include adequate measures to protect the interests of farmers who produce for the local market, or of farmers producing organic food
Objectives, results and approach – meeting challenges of the 21st century
The EcoFair Trade Dialogue seeks to intertwine visionary ideas with concrete reform proposals. The whole process is based on values of economic, social and cultural human rights, ecological sustainability and gender equity.
The project has three aims, it wants to be innovative, integrative and influential:
1. Innovation: The dialogue should enrich and influence the entire debate about WTO and the agricultural system with new guidelines and instruments. The results will be published in various languages and in a comprehensive way. The aim is to draft a concrete and coherent reform proposal until the end of 2006 offering innovative alternatives to the current global trade regime of agriculture. However, the draft consultations process is likely to continue after 2006. The proposals might be submitted outside the WTO, such as in the FAO, or UNCTAD. The target of the report is to respond to the social and ecological challenges of the 21st century. The expert panel members will write policy papers which will widely spread in civil society as well as among decision makers. Other inputs, news and publications created for the dialogue will be published on the website under http://www.ecofair-trade.org/.
2. Influence: The dialogue seeks to influence societal debates and political decision making process with its ideas and concepts. We want representatives of governments and multilateral organisations, parliamentarians and leaders of social movements to refer to the ideas represented by the expert panel. NGOs (in particular farmer organisations) and networks in the areas of environment, development, agriculture and those critical to globalisation should support and spread the ideas of the dialogue.
3. Integration: Furthermore, the project wants to be integrative by bridging normative differences in civil society as well as the diverse opinions. It seeks to create a common platform of what the future agenda should be. The dialogue wants to connect representatives of civil society from the south, east, and north with delegates, parliamentarians, advisors, and other relevant advocates capable of influencing current negotiations. Through this integrative approach the project seeks to influence policy making processes on agricultural trade in the medium and long term.
The EcoFair Trade Dialogue is focusing on specific issues concerning the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) such as tariffs and subsidies. Beyond that the project is dealing with other potential approaches for trade regulations, such as supply management, qualified market access and commodity agreements.
Multi Level Dialogue – debate around the world in science, politics and civil society
The dialogue will take place in four different levels:
1. Expert Panel
2. Regional Dialogues
3. Advisory Board
4. Decision Makers
Expert Panel – think tank from around the world
The Expert Panel consists of ten experts from ten different countries moderated by the Wuppertal Institut. The Panel will have five meetings within two years, whereas the first meetings have already taken place in Mexico (April 2005) and Berlin (June 2005). The Experts will write policy papers based on the examination during the meetings, which will be revised in the following meetings.
The Expert Panel Members [More...]
Consultative Board - strategic partners
An international consultative board of about 30 opinion leaders and decision makers from national and multinational levels will be set up to be our strategic partners. They are selected individually, following suggestions by the expert panel members. Regular newsletters will keep them informed, they are asked to give comments on the proposals. Expert panel members will keep in touch with them individually. Finally, they could be invited to the policy maker dialogue.
Regional Dialogues – mirror realities
In a second stage regional dialogues will take place based on the policy papers. The idea is to set up small groups of only about 20 participants to provide an intimate atmosphere for an open discussion. Experts as well as regional offices from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Misereor partner organizations will play a crucial role in organizing the regional dialogues.
The propsals of the Expert Panel will be spread in civil society to reinitiate an alternative debate, mirror different realities around the world and at the same time should provide a critical feedback to the experts. On the basis of the regional dialogues the policy papers will be revised according to the new input provided by civil society. The second stage is suppose to start in 2006.
A First Regional Dialogue
A first sort of regional dialogue was tried in in Mexico in May 2005. It was presented by Silke Helfrich, the head of the Regional Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Central America, Mexico and Cuba; this meeting was conducted by Rita Schwentesius, member of the expert panel, and Yolanda Trápaga, Member of the Postgraduate Program of Economics at the UNAM. It was not planned as a Regional Dialogue, and its intention was to open a new discussion about agriculture ahead of the 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong later this year.
Participants were scientists, politicians, organizations, NGO’s as well as the biggest Mexican Farmers Union, the CNC. A positive echo about the event was published in one of the leading Mexican newspapers, ‘El Financiero´.
The approach of the project with its combination of reform proposals and long term alternative ideas was well received. Other meetings of this group will follow to keep the discussion going.
Policy Makers – disseminate ideas, examine viability
The fourth level will start by the end of 2006 with the presentation of the reform proposals in a report to policy makers. This policy makers dialogue might involve Geneva diplomats to the WTO and key delegates from certain country groups, parliamentarians, government officials and other experts.
This dialogue intends to disseminate its alternative ideas and to examine its viability in order to improve the quality of its proposals. Nevertheless, this dialogue will try to guarantee an informal character of discussion so policy makers can speak “off the record” and argue beyond official mandates.
First Expert Panels – setting priorities for the dialogue
First Expert Panel Meeting – Mexico
The first expert panel meeting, held in Mexico from April 18-20 2005, established a common discussion ground amongst the panel members. Each member gave a short outline on a specific agricultural (trade) problem related to his or her region. “Sustainable agriculture” and “food sovereignty” as reference principles in the trade context have been intensively discussed, and have been related to the actual WTO context.
As the main result of the first expert panel meeting, the group agreed upon six topics to be further investigated at the following meeting:
· Challenges of agriculture in the 21st century
· Normative principles of a future trade system
· Food sovereignty and trade implications of sustainable agriculture
· Governance of imports
· Supply management
· Qualified market access
Members announced to prepare short inputs to each of these topics.
Second Expert Panel Meeting - Berlin
The constructive discussions among the members of the export panel during the second panel meeting, held in Berlin from June 9-11 2005, has lead to nine topics being further elaborated in policy papers written by the experts until the next meeting in autumn 2005. Following working titles and overall guiding questions for the papers have been decided upon:
1. Qualified Market Access / Qualified External Protection (To be written by Hannes Lorenzen, with contributions from Anna Luiza Ferreira Pijnappel and Souleymane Bassoum)
Overall question: Do (northern?) countries have the right to determine what comes into their markets? If so, what are criteria for market protection/market access, and how can countries govern their imports without neglecting their extra-territorial responsibilities?
2. Supply Management (To be written by Daniel de la Torre Ugarte, with contributions from Gonzalo Fanjul)
Overall question: How can decreasing agricultural prices and high price volatilities on the world market be tackled?
3. Governance of Imports (To be written by Arze Glipo, with contributions from Rite Schwentesius Rindermann
Overall question: What policy measures are suitable to protect livelihood economies from negative impacts by the global market and by trade imports?
4. Small Farmers (To be written by Odour Ong´wen, with contributions from Aileen Kwa
Overall question: What do small farmers offer to society, and why are they not an outdated model of production but an important asset to society?
5. Industrial Agriculture (To be written by Tilman Santarius and Wolfgang Sachs, with contributions from Daniel de la Torre Ugarte and Sophia Murphy)
Overall question: How far can industrial agricultural production be made ecologically and socially more sustainable?
6. Asymmetries in Trade Relations (written by Gonzalo Fanjul, with contributions from Sophia Murphy)
Overall question: What are existing asymmetries in agricultural trade relations, do they predetermine trade imbalances, and do they impact on trade flows to the disadvantage of poor people and the environment?
7. Power in Production Chains (To be written by Sophia Murphy, with contributions from Hannes Lorenzen)
Overall question: How far do current power relations in production hinder a fair and sustainable model of agricultural production and trade?
8. Role of Exports (To be written by Souleymane Bassoum, with contributions from Aileen Kwa, Kamal Malhotra and Anna Luiza Ferreira Pijnappel)
Overall question: Does sustainable human development need exports? If so, what kind of exports?
9. Subsidies (To be written by Rita Schwentesius Rindermann, with contributions from Daniel de la Torre Ugarte and Gonzalo Fanjul
Overall question: Does agriculture need public support? If so, what kind of support is legitimate?
On the occasion of the second Expert Panel Meeting, the EcoFair Trade Dialogue was presented to the German public.
Participants of the Second Expert Panel Meeting in Berlin.
Impressions from the Second Expert Panel Meeting in Berlin
Download the article "Umwelt und Landwirtschaft" (Deutschlandfunk 05/06/10) (in German only)
Future meetings – Aachen and Hong Kong
The third expert panel meeting will take place in Aachen, Germany in September 2005. This meeting will discuss the nine draft policy papers decided upon on the second expert panel meeting. Furthermore, a discussion of first results with EU-policy makers is scheduled.
During the sixth Ministerial Conference in Hongkong in December 2005, a meeting with the consultative board members is planned, in addition to a dinner dialogue with selected negotiators and a public panel discussion on agricultural trade issues.
Webpage - keeping updated with the project
More details, background information and continuous updates of the project are provided under
Böll Latin America
Ecofair Trade
Imprint
Heinrich Böll Foundation
Referat Ökologie & Nachhaltigkeit
Rosenthalerstr. 40/41
10178 Berlin
Heinrich Böll Foundation
Regional Office Mexico
Calle José Alvarado 12
Colonia Roma Norte
CP 06700 Mexico D.F.
Editor: Elmer Lenzen
© Heinrich Böll Foundation 2005
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