DEVELOPMENT-EUROPE: EU Urged to Make Aid Policies More Coherent
BRUSSELS, Nov 23 (IPS) - 'Coherence' between European Union development policies and others like agriculture is set to become the new watchword amongst EU development policy makers over the next few months.
On Friday European Union (EU) development ministers in Brussels will take a first look at a paper drafted by the executive European Commission which draws attention to the conflict between development policy and the EU's subsidised farm trade.
EU Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been at the forefront of criticism that EU farm policy is negating development policy.
They say subsidised beef, sugar, grain, cooking oil and wheat dumped on Third World markets at below EU production prices are putting developing country farmers out of business and negating EU- sponsored food security projects in developing countries.
A new 67-page study on the impact of the EU's grain exports to Africa commissioned by the German NGO European Union platform which zooms in on the impact of subsidised grain exports on developing countries will give development ministers food for thought.
"Dumping is deliberately introduced in order to conquer new markets or retain existing ones. During 1993/4, the value per tonne of EU bread wheat in the African countries South of the Sahara was, at 44 percent, less than half of the EU's intervention price," says its author, Bernhard Walter.
He says low-priced wheat imports supplant traditional coarse grains like millet, sorghum and maize in low-income food deficit countries.
"Low grain prices lead to the withdrawal of farmers from the market as they confine themselves to producing just enough to meet the subsistence needs of their families," continues Walter.
The study calls either for an end to EU agricultural exports with the money saved by cutting export subsidies to be made available for development aid in these countries or temporary tariffs on subsidised food imports being ploughed back into development projects.
It says that efforts made by developing countries towards food security should be taken into account when granting subsidies for farm exports.
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