Seminar on farming to be held

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Agriculture will hold a national workshop next week to seek development strategies to enable agriculture to become a modern sector capable of meeting future trends and global demands.

Secretary-general of the Ministry of Agriculture, Soetatwo Hadiwigeno, said yesterday that the workshop, which will be attended by 300 agriculture officials from the regency to national level, will teach them how to accommodate and apply the principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The establishment of the WTO was agreed by 125 countries in April last year at a conference in Marrakesh of Morocco. It officially concluded the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations after more than seven years.

The WTO is the third pillar of the world's economic system, alongside the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It has the power to settle trade differences between nations and widen the principles of free trade to other sectors.

"Ministry officials are expected to provide information to the public, especially producers of agricultural goods, on WTO policies and the international standards that they are expected to meet in order to enter the world market," Soetatwo said.

The workshop, he said, will present a number of cabinet ministers as speakers.

Soetatwo explained that a "modern agricultural sector" should be dynamic, innovative, flexible and efficient. Its development should also be market oriented but environmentally sound, while providing agricultural workers with just incomes. (pwn)