The coming rise in global ag trade

ARTICLE: "The Doha round ... and round ... and round: After another failed summit, seven years of trade talks may become nine or ten," The Economist, 2 August 2008, p. 71.

Ag accounts for only 8 percent of total world merchandise trade, but you gotta believe that's going to rise with global warming--by quite a bit.

Doha tries to crack that hardest nut, because no trade is more tied to the land than agriculture--by definition. The failure, the magazine argues, "was rooted in the success of the last [round, known as Uruguay]." That deal required countries to convert their various trade barriers to straight tariffs. Since everyone feared a surge of imports, "special safeguard" duties were allowed as a temporary method, which of course morphed into a long-term "crutch." The Doha round is stuck on the question of how to reform them.