April 21, 2008 (LPAC)--At a joint press conference in Brussels, a few days ago, European and Japanese farm leaders called attention to the risk for consumers if the current trade deal being negotiated in WTO goes ahead.

"We do not believe that consumers are aware of what's going on in WTO," said Jean-Michel Lemetayer, the President of COPA (Council of Agricultural Producers). "Recent developments on world markets for agricultural commodities are causing real concern about food security and stability. This is shown by the British Prime Minister's recent initiative to urge the G8 to do something about these issues.

"Yet at the same time in WTO we are moving towards a trade deal which will cause serious cuts in EU agricultural production. The EU is already the world's largest importer of its food needs. But we will become even more dependent on imports for a series of essential food such as beef, poultry, pork, butter, sugar, fruit and vegetables and eggs. For beef alone EU production would fall by as much as 800,000 tons -- equivalent to total beef production in a country such as the UK.

"We are also seeing much more volatility in prices of agricultural foods on world markets and climate change will reinforce this trend. But a WTO deal will simply increase our exposure to this price volatility.

COGECA Vice-President Bruni added, "Production in the poorer developing countries will also be put at risk by this trade deal. They will face increasing competition from large-scale farming and multinational traders in countries such as Brazil and the USA. How will smaller farmers in these countries be able to compete?

The leaders of the Japanese and EU farm organizations signed a joint declaration calling the attention of citizens to these concerns. "We must stop these negotiations going any further," concluded Jean-Michel Lemetayer.