News

Restlessness growing over stalled trade negotiations

Beef Central 10/12/2012

The agricultural sector is growing restless over seemingly endless delays in completing trade negotiations, according to the National Farmers Federation. 

The nation’s peak farmer representative body is calling on the Australian Government to increase its focus on trade in order to deliver real outcomes for Australian farmers.

NFF President and Chair of the NFF Trade Committee, Jock Laurie, said there had been some small steps forward on trade, but reductions in trade distortions and the creation of new export market opportunities was essential for

Australia’s farmers, which export some 60 percent of the food and fibre they grow.

Mr Laurie was speaking at the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in Auckland last Friday, where the NFF was one of many agricultural bodies in attendance.

“Agriculture has the highest trade distortions of any sector of merchandise trade, with average global tariffs more than three times greater for food and fibre products,” Mr Laurie said

“While there have been some positive steps forward on trade, like the signing of the Australian-Malaysia free trade agreement for instance, other negotiations seem to have stalled completely.

“And while agriculture is often a sticking point in trade negotiations, we believe it must remain as a central pillar in the negotiations, not be put in a too-hard basket and not negotiated.

“We will continue to strongly encourage the Australian Government to push for real agricultural trade reform. Delays in achieving tangible outcomes are already putting Australian farmers at a disadvantage to farmers from other countries, with Australia lagging behind the US, for instance, in finalising our beef trade agreement with South Korea.

“It’s time for real action, both in finalising Australia’s trade agreements with key export markets, and in liberalising global trade reform. The gains to Australian farmers, and indeed to the world’s farmers, from free trade are just too great to ignore,” Mr Laurie said.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Your comment will not appear until it has been moderated.
Contributions that contravene our Comments Policy will not be published.

Comments

Get Beef Central's news headlines emailed to you -
FREE!