Agriculture faces a new period of change if the WTO World Trade talks give a new impetus to liberalisation. Far from being minimalist, the 2008/09 review of the CAP would need to be far-reaching to comply with a WTO Agreement. In particular, the deal to phase out export subsidies by 2013, and to have met the commitment that a substantial part will have to be eliminated in the first half of any implementation period, would spell the effective end of intervention. The EU budget simply could not support intervention if the prop of export subsidies was removed.
Speaking at the RABDF 2006 National Dairy Conference in Cheltenham, David Curry, Dairy UK Chairman, said: "The phasing out of export subsidies would have a significant impact in Northern Ireland which depends heavily on exports of dairy products, particularly whole milk powder.
"The Republic of Ireland was also a major user of export subsidies. There was a danger that if the export route was closed, big volumes of Irish milk would be seeking a home on the British market at heavily discounted prices."
Mr Curry also spoke of what he called "The new ethics" influencing the politics of trade. The "Make Poverty History" campaign had linked farm support in developed counties to the poverty of the world's least developed countries.
The Fair Trade movement was now making a major impact on the UK, with big retail names like Marks and Spencer and Top Shop adopting Fair Trade buying policies. Mr Curry predicted that the environment lobby would endorse the food miles movement to argue that we should look at the costs of trade in terms of climate change impact as well as its benefits.
These were huge new issues to which globalisation had given birth. The comfortable old days of trade deals being cut between the EU and the US, usually over the protests of Australia, were gone for good.
Mr Curry spelt out the timetable for the WTO deal. The deal had to be struck in detail by the end of July to enable the terms to be applied to the hundreds and thousands of items which were actually traded. This complete package would have to be with the US congress by January 2007, if President Bush was to be able to get the deal accepted using his "Fast Track" authority. This was due to expire in mid-2007. If that date passed, before an agreement was signed and sealed, the whole process would be dead in the water.
