Developing Countries Voice Fury at Farm Subsidies

Developing world economies today turned on rich nations at the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong over their reluctance to open up farming markets.

The talks - now in their third day - were intended to conclude the Doha round on meeting the needs of poorer countries. However, they have become deadlocked amid squabbling between the EU and the US.

Developing economies say the EU, US and other rich nations must cut subsidies to their farmers and tariffs blocking imports as part of a global free trade deal.

The Chilean foreign minister, Ignacio Walker, criticised the EU farm subsidies, which amount to $2 (£1) a day for each cow. "So many poor people wish they would be at least as well off as an EU cow," he said.

The World Bank added to the indignation expressed by the least developed countries over their treatment at the WTO meeting, saying there had been much talk about development but too little action.

"In the three days the meetings have taken so far, the rich countries have transferred more than $2bn to their farmers in various forms of support," the World Bank's vice president, Danny Leipziger, said in a statement.

"In the same period, the 300 million poorest people in Africa have earned less than $1bn between them."

European nations say they have already offered a 46% cut in agriculture tariffs, and that developing countries - particularly Brazil, India and China - now need to come up with offers to lower trade barriers to services and manufactured goods.

"The EU has presented a complete agricultural package," Elena Espinosa, Spain's agricultural minister, said. "What did the others present? Nothing, nothing, nothing."

Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, said he had "had no offers, no matching offers", but negotiations were now becoming serious and around 20 different topics relating to industrial and farm goods were now being discussed.

The US agriculture secretary, Mike Johanns, said he was discouraged by the EU's failure to match a US proposal to make steeper cuts to its farm tariffs and subsidies. "I am concerned about time," he said. "We are still waiting for the EU."

Talks later in the day suggested some progress was being made. "The dynamics are changing," an Indian trade official, who asked not to be named, said.

"We had a very good meeting in the morning. There is a desire to move forward," Keith Rockwell, the chief spokesman for the WTO, said.

However, the Hong Kong meeting, mired in a stalemate over agriculture before it began, encountered further problems today when Honduras said it might reject an overall agreement unless the EU agrees to reform its banana import policies.

"We hope to try and find an agreeable solution before Sunday," the Honduran WTO ambassador, Dacio Castillo, told the Associated Press.

"Otherwise, it's going to be difficult to accept whatever will be the outcome of this meeting."

The WTO bases its decision on consensus, and the agreement of each of its 149 members is required on any deal. A global free trade treaty is not expected until at least the end of next year.

The most prominent anti-WTO protesters in Hong Kong, the South Korean farmers, today switched to Buddhist tactics, repeatedly kneeling and kowtowing as they marched to the meeting venue.

Wearing black headbands, around 300 protesters walked down the street in rows of five. After taking three steps, they knelt down and touched their foreheads to the ground before getting up and doing it again. Many chanted "Down, down WTO," to a loud drum beat.

The farmers say opening their domestic rice market to foreign competition under a WTO treaty would bankrupt them.

"This is to express our firm wish in the most desperate and humble way," protester Park Min-yung, the secretary-general of the Korean Peasants League, said.