Combs To Monitor Seattle Trade
Talks With Agriculture In Mind

By Susan Combs
Texas Agriculture Commissioner

When other countries want to shut U.S. products out of their markets, agriculture is an easy target, and that is why reform of agricultural trade is a focus of World Trade Organization negotiations that started Tuesday in Seattle.

The future viability and livelihood of our farmers and ranchers is at stake in these negotiations as U.S. Trade Representative officials work to open up global markets to American food and fiber products. Because the outcome is so important, I will be joining the heads of some 13 other state agriculture departments in Seattle on Dec. 1-2 during the negotiations.

WTO is an international entity consisting of 135 member countries, including the United States, which works on reducing trade barriers among member countries. A crucial step in making China a WTO member was reached this month when China and the United States completed a bilateral trade agreement.

Exports are vital to U.S. and Texas agriculture because our farmers and ranchers are extremely efficient. We grow far more than the American population can consume, and as a result, every one in three U.S. farm acres now produces for foreign markets. Clearly, we need to be able to export our goods to the 96 percent of the world's population living outside our national borders, who want and need U.S. products.

Texas is already making great gains from exports, but there is tremendous room for improvement. Nationwide, Texas ranks fourth in agricultural exports, earning an estimated $3 billion in 1998, up from $2.5 billion in 1991. Texas agricultural exports support about 45,600 jobs, both on and off the farm, in food processing, storage and transportation. In other words, Texas agricultural exports employ almost as many people as Dell and Microsoft combined nationwide.

As the nation's top cattle and cotton producer, we also raise commodities that are in high demand globally. Our state's top five agricultural exports are cotton, live animals and red meats, feed grains and products, feeds and fodders, and hides and skins. However, we must keep in mind that our competitors are also increasing their production of these commodities.

Using advice received nationwide during listening sessions this summer, including a July 8 forum in Austin that I hosted, the U.S. Trade Representative's office has developed the following agricultural objectives for this month's WTO talks:

• Completely eliminate and prohibit future agricultural export subsidies that allow countries to artificially lower the price of their products. The European Union's $7 billion in agricultural export subsidies make up 85 percent of all world export subsidies. Governments should be allowed to support their farmers, but not in a manner that distorts the common goals of free trade;

• Continue to lower tariffs or duty rates imposed on imported agricultural products. Countries began lowering their tariffs after the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1994. However, world agricultural tariffs continue to average 50 percent — five times higher than U.S. tariffs;

• Require exporting state-owned companies, known as state trading enterprises, to provide more information about their operations including monopoly activities and pricing policies that may subsidize agricultural products and undercut prices in export markets; and

• Establish common data requirements for the acceptance of trade in agricultural biotechnology products.

WTO negotiators have set a three-year timetable to resolve these and other agricultural issues. Other countries' practices of keeping the door shut to U.S. and Texas agricultural products must end, because new jobs and continued growth for the U.S. economy are at risk. Our farmers and ranchers must have fair trade and access to growing global markets. Texas agriculture will support free trade as long as our trading partners are willing to work toward the WTO agricultural objectives — a fairer and more equitable system for all.