The first seeds of a shrinking-the-Gap strategy

ìFarm Subsidies Again Take Front Seat at the W.T.O.,î by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 28 July, p. W1.

ìFailure in Cancun Haunts WTO: Trade Leaders Meet in Effort to Patch Difference Between Rich and Poor Nations,î by Paul Blustein, Washington Post, 28 July, p. E1.

ìPanel Sees No Unique Risk From Genetic Engineering,î by Andrew Pollack, Wall Street Journal, 28 July, p. A13.

ìWTO Farm Pact Wouldnít Be Panacea,î by Scott Miller, WSJ, 29 July, p. A11.

What always drives success at WTO meetings is the overwhelming fear of failure. When thereís not enough of it, then talks collapse, but when itís overwhelming, then deals get cut. Cancun was such a collapse last year, and now the overwhelming fear of going 0 for 2 is pushing both Core and Gap states into more negotiable stances.

Everyone knows what has to give: roughly $300 billion of ag subsidies that Core nations lavish on themselves, effectively shutting out the bulk of the Gap from their markets in the one venue where theyíve consistently showed capability. How the Core expects Gap states to move up the production chain when we keep their ag sectors shackled is simply beyond me, but the myths of ìthe landî die hard.

The good news so far in these talks is that neither side is acting too bloc-ish, and splinter groups on both sides are approaching each other in a mutual search for earliest common denominators.

Along those lines, the National Academy of Sciences just came out with an authoritative report that said that ìgenetically engineered crops do not pose health risks that cannot also arise from crops created by other techniques, including conventional breeding.î

What that says is that bio-tech is different in degree but not in kind from the sort of crop cross-breeding that humans have been pursuing for millennia. For the Core to deny these advances to Gap nations desperate either to feed themselves or to boost production in areas where crops are hard to grow is simply wrong. I call it a ìno brainerî in the book and am routinely vilified for it, but now that the NAS is officially on the record regarding the safety of bio-tech, the passionate arguments about ìfrankenfoodsî canít be defended as anything but ag protectionismópure and simple.

And I agree with the Journal's appraisal of who will really win in any ag deal between Core and Gap: largely the New Core powers Brazil, China and India. Why? They "have the infrastructure and farming know-how to better take advantage of a trade deal." But guess what? Until you give them the incentives to invest in that ag infrastructure, Gap countries won't do it. May seem like chicken or egg, but the Core's got the chicken in a choke-hold right now.