Farm lobbies prepare for APEC

Farm lobbies prepare for APEC

By Jack Taylor

SYDNEY (AFP): Wielding political clout and war chests brimming
with cash, the agricultural lobbies in key Asia-Pacific economies
may determine whether next week's APEC meeting in Osaka is a
success or a dismal flop.

Nothing will be tougher to crack at the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) forum than the plan to demolish internal
barriers in food trade.

China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are seeking special
treatment for sensitive sectors, including agriculture, in the
25-year free-trade blueprint. The move is opposed by the other 14
APEC members, led by Australia, the United States, New Zealand
and Thailand.

The force behind the potential clash are farming organizations
in industrialized economies whose power far outstrips the
relatively small number of people they represent.

It is a power rooted in trade worth billions of dollars -- and
in the public's enduring faith in the rural myth.

None is better organized than Japan's National Federation of
Agricultural Cooperative Associations, representing eight million
farmers. It even controls so-called agricultural lawmakers,
mostly in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), senior partner in
Japan's ruling coalition.

The federation, also known as Zenno, warns it will fight any
attempt to go beyond a 1993 Uruguay Round agreement raising the
minimum foreign share of Japan's domestic rice market from four
to eight percent over six years.

"We have not started lobbying this time," a Zenno official
said. "But if APEC makes a decision which goes against our
criteria, we will strongly protest against it."

Australian farmers are clamoring for Canberra to take a hard
line on prying open other markets, seeing a rich bounty there for
Australian dairy products, meat and fruit.

"There is just no point in going to Osaka if the Japanese and
other nations want to exclude further agricultural trade
liberalization," National Farmers' Federation (NFF) President Don
McGauchie said last month.

Australian officials will work with U.S. officials for
inclusion of agriculture, and admit that they worked well
together against others in the past.

But Australia has had less success in trying to scrap the
United States' own market-distorting tools on farm trade.

Australian sugar exports, for instance, have been cut by two-
thirds of their pre-1982 levels at a cost to exporters of US$270
million by the U.S. sugar regime while export schemes such as the
Export Enhancement Program have given U.S. exporters a big
advantage in traditional Australian markets.

U.S. export subsidies are estimated to cost Australia more
than US$100 million a year. Yet the barriers that could be
demolished by APEC's regional liberalization program by the year
2010 -- including US subsidies -- are calculated at US$2.2
billion.

The NFF, which represents the interests of 120,000 farms --
three percent of Australia's workforce producing 25 percent of
its exports -- sees cracking the U.S. nut as being almost as
crucial as ensuring agriculture stays on the agenda.

U.S. farm exports were worth some $45.6 billion in 1994,
generated by just 3.67 million people.

Political scientist Stephen Hess, of the U.S. Brookings
Institution, said the figures showed the economic but also
political muscle of farmers' groups in rural states, including
Florida, the Midwest and California, which translates into muscle
on Capitol Hill.

The U.S. map is "so drawn that agriculture becomes a very
important constituency," he told AFP. "The nature of the agrarian
myth still holds fast in the United States."

South Korean farmers, represented in a powerful federation
called Junnong, have already shown a willingness to resort to
violence to protect a market for beef and rice which props up a
declining farm population of six million, mostly in small,
inefficient holdings.

They cannot compete with imports as South Korean rice is five
times dearer than, say, American rice.

In December 1993, they showed an ability to make South Korean
ministers tremble by taking to the streets of Seoul in their
thousands in violent protests against a decision by President Kim
Young-Sam to allow rice imports under the Uruguay Round.

Kim was forced to make a public apology for reneging on an
election promise to bar imports, and sacked his prime minister,
although the South Korean parliament later confirmed the pact.

The APEC meeting starts with economy and trade ministers on
Nov. 16 and 17, followed by summit talks on Nov. 18-19.