The subject of subsidies to agriculture in the developed countries harming exports from developing countries is “old hat.” The developing countries end up not only having on their hands an actual interference with their sustainable renewable exports (this as different from the unsustainable exports of their natural non-renewable resources), but actually an onslaught of cheap agricultural products from outside their countries that could effect even the rentability of their agriculture for supplying their internal needs. You would hardly believe it - but it is true - free giveaway of food in order to halt hunger, has the side effect of creating further hunger because it can lead people away even from subsistence agriculture.

At the recent Vienna US - EU summit the US did point a finger at the Europeans pointing out that they spent last year $133.8 billion on such subsidies while the US spent only $42.7 billion. With Japan having spent $47.4 billion the three major powers on this are thus: the EU, Japan, and the US - which together accounted for 80% of the rich world’s farm subsidies.

The Vienna summit solved nothing as it solved none of the other outstanding problems in the US - EU relationship.

We took up this subject now because of a very interesting bit of information from a Wall Street Journal editorial of June 23, 2006, titled - “A Mere $280 Billion” - which is the sum total of the rich countries subsidies for their agriculture in relation to the opposing view of the developing countries’ leadership on this - a really small amount compared to global trade in general, that causes higher losses because of the refusal of the developing countries to lower their own barriers to free trade, if they cannot obtain concessions in exchange even on this very logical topic. Also, don’t forget that these subsidies increase the cost of food also in the developed countries enriching just a few in the agricultural industry business.

Now, the new information in that WSJ article was what the article calls “in relative terms” - that is the ratio of the amount of the subsidies per amount of the total agricultural expenditures of a given country. Looking at these figures, European countries that are not members of the EU, though with rather smaller agricultural sectors, nevertheless become the main culprits!

Switzerland spent 68% of its farm economy as subsidies! Next were Iceland at 67% and Norway at 64%. On this scale the EU registered 32% and the US 16%.

We are specially miffed at these three members of the so called European Free Trade Association (EFTA) who are also among first ranked donors to every good cause at the UN - but do they not realize that they are, per capita, actually also among the highest culprits that caused the problem in the first place? Our web has a special eye on Norway - the oil sheiks of Europe, who claim being the highest ranked humanitarians. How do they answer the figure just quoted above?