. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/AG/NG/W/149
4 April 2001
(01-1667)
Committee on Agriculture
Special SessionOriginal:  English
SEVENTH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
26-28 MARCH 2001
Statement by Brazil
In March last year, we agreed on a work programme for "the first phase" of the mandated
negotiations on agriculture, having Article 20 as a background.
One recalls that the specialized media around the world announced this agreement and
publicized that the mandated negotiations in agriculture had started as agreed at the Uruguay Round.At the same time, Members, of a wide spectrum of positions, declared their commitment to continue
the reform process as mandated in Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture.
There was cautious optimism that Members would engage in good faith in furthering the
reform process in agriculture.  We worked, during this last year, on this understanding.
Nearly fifty proposals have been tabled to this date, sponsored by some 125 members.  This is
a fact that, in itself, illustrates the importance of these negotiations, particularly as most of these
proposals are market oriented.
As we now approach a critical moment, where some crucial decisions have to be taken to
define the objectives, the pace, the scope and the structure of the next step of the reform process, wesee doors being shut.  We perceive resistance to talk about issues that have always been the
mainstream topics of the Agreement on Agriculture.  We are confronted with increasing
conditionalities, which threat to rewrite agreements achieved at the Uruguay Round and paid for at the
same round.
We are about to agree on a paper that sets the basis for the second phase of negotiations.  This
paper falls very much short of Brazil’s expectations as to the mandate to follow.
For the sake of progress, of maintaining the negotiating momentum, and in light of
sensitivities of different nature, Brazil is willing to accept an agreement which leaves much to bedesired.
I would like to stress that it is becoming increasingly difficult to refute the growing criticism
as to our capacity to move forward and to the ability of the WTO to overcome paralysis and move
ahead in the construction of agriculture reform.
Brazil has special interest in agriculture and, for that reason, we have been open to this idea of
broadening the scope of the multilateral negotiations.
But, if a mandated process that has been negotiated and paid for in another round of
negotiations does not move in the right direction, please don't expect us to support progress in any
other areas.G/AG/NG/W/149
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This is not a pre-condition; this is not either, as some like to put it, a prejudgement of the
results of this process.  This is a legitimate concern and a fair stance.
Those Members which declare their concern with the future of the WTO and their
commitment to improve the prevailing critical situati on, will have to turn rhetoric into action and
show flexibility to "give and take".
We don’t want to believe that the commitment to  negotiate further reform in agriculture, as
agreed at the end of the Uruguay Round, was only a commitment to sit at the table and go through the
motions. What we have here is an obligation which was part of the deal and which means to negotiate
in good faith.
In concluding, I would like to make a couple of comments.
The implementation period of the reform in agriculture, as agreed in the Uruguay Round, has
now been completed and one has to admit that it has gone unnoticed, except for some ups and downs
in subsidization, some switches from one product to another.  Agriculture remains the biggestanomaly in international trade.
We see the work programme, which we are about to approve, as a stopgap agenda to bridge
the gap between now and the time we launch a new round, if ever we have one.  We may well end up
with no round and therefore having to make do with  this arrangement.  But if a new round is to be
launched and negotiations on its agenda are to be undertaken, Brazil wishes to set on record that, in
our view, this work programme will have to be enlarged in order to allow for negotiations to take
place on real reform.
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