DAVOS, Switzerland - Leaders and ministers of Latin American countries told richer nations Friday that they must slash their farm subsidies if they want to see more trade opportunities.
"We need to build a trade freeway that goes both ways," said Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo. "Europe, the United States and Japan cannot ask us to open up our markets while they spend US$1 billion a day to subsidize their agriculture. You cannot ask us to do something that you don't practice."
Toledo, speaking during the annual World Economic Forum, told reporters that if Peru would no longer need so much aid if its farmers and those in rich countries competed on a level playing field.
"We can be competitive in quality and prices. Just open your market," he said in a message aimed especially at the European Union.
The 15-nation EU this week announced plans to change the way it subsidizes farmers so that payments are no longer linked to production. However the Latin American nations say much more is needed.
"We think it is indispensable to work on subsidies, especially those that have to do with food and agriculture, because that is where this huge gap and the big differences between developed countries and underdeveloped countries come from," said Mexican President Vicente Fox.
Luis Fernando Furlan, minister of industry and development of Brazil, said his country has 20 million farmers — more than the EU and the United States combined — but they cannot compete internationally because of the massive subsidies paid to farmers in rich nations.
"It's incredible to us," he said. "How can a small number of people be so powerful as to get almost 50 percent of the budget of the European Union and to get the amount of subsidies they get in Switzerland, the United States, Japan and (South) Korea?
"What's happening is that the developing world is getting poorer and poorer because of overproduction and depressed international prices. Developed countries need to sell their products at the world prices without subsidies."
Debate over agriculture looks set to be the major stumbling block to a wider trade liberalization agreement currently being negotiated within the 144-nation World Trade Organization.
Jose Miguel Insulza, interior minister of Chile, said he was "not encouraged" by progress in the WTO talks. Though the organization has a March 31 deadline to decide on the size of reductions in subsidies and import tariffs, the EU has yet to submit a proposal, with France and Ireland holding out for smaller cuts in subsidies.
"If we don't agree on something in agriculture, we feel that we are totally out of schedule for 2005" — the date the agreement is supposed to be completed — Insulza said.
He said Chile has completed a free trade agreement with the United States and is now pressing for progressing in the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
"We have more hope frankly in the FTAA" than in the WTO talks, he said.
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