IVORY COAST: Ivorian Cotton farmers continue harvest their crop as international debate continues to rage over subsidies paid out by rich nations to their own cotton farmers

Record ID: 182689

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Ivorian Cotton farmers continue harvest their crop as international debate continues to rage over subsidies paid out by rich nations to their own cotton farmers
  • Date: 15th December 2005
  • Summary: WIDE OF CATTLE IN FIELDS
  • Embargoed: 30th December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Economic News
  • Reuters ID: LVA8XB174NR3AXUZGV6M7Q35M6BN
  • Story Text: Cotton pickers were hard at work in the fields around Korhogo, 600 kilometres north of the captial of Ivory Coast, Abidjan on Thursday (December 15) as an international debate raged over subsidies paid out by rich nations to their own cotton farmers.
    Local cotton producer Raphael Ouattara said: "There is no way we can compete in this world being at a disadvantage. What I mean is that on the one hand you have farmers who get subsidies and on another hand others who don't get any subsidies - and they are expected to provide same quality of products on the market ...It is not possible."
    African cotton producers say subsidies paid by the United States to its farmers depress world prices. The United States has said rich nations can best respond to African concerns by agreeing on a global deal to open up agricultural markets and cut farm supports.
    The cotton row, which helped scupper trade talks in Mexico in 2003, threatens to explode again at the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) ministerial meeting in Hong Kong next week.
    The WTO has already ruled U.S. cotton subsidies totalling some 4 billion U.S.dollars a year are illegal. African producers say these subsidies threaten the livelihoods of 10 to 15 million African farmers and their families.
    Free trade campaigners say farmers in Ivory Coast and thousands more in nearby Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Benin are forced to sell their cotton cheaply to compete with large Western farms kept afloat by state subsidies.
    The farmers could benefit from higher prices if the WTO's Doha round of trade talks succeeds in persuading the United States, the world's largest cotton exporter, and other rich states to scrap these grants.
    The EU, a major cotton importer, has offered to abolish all its most trade-distorting subsidies to the industry once a global trade deal is signed.
    Many cotton farmers are forced to trade thousands of tonnes a year on the black market in neighbouring countries, at a large loss.
    Raphael Ouattara said that, faced with the low prices paid to cotton producers in Africa: "We will ask the rich countries, I mean those who can afford it like the United States and Europe, to subsidize our cotton."
    He added that if all else failed he would be forced to give up farming and "go for something else."
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