07/17/06 Schwab talks to Farmers & Ranchers

Trade Ambassador Talks to Farmers and Ranchers. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The nation's top trade negotiator says WTO members aren't showing much energy these days - but she hasn't given up on a deal for the Doha Round. SCHWAB: I don't need to tell you all how important International trade is to your business, to your members. That's pretty straight forward when one out of three acres is planted for export. When the United States shipped 62 billion dollars worth of product overseas last year when 27% of our agricultural receipts are generated by exports. Unfortunately, other negotiators seem to be dragging their feet. SCHWAB: After we put our offer on the table in October we had a couple of other groups come in with proposals of varying degrees of interest but none as bold as ours and none meeting our objective of seeing improved market access out there. Schwab and others continue to say that it is time for the other countries to step up to the plate. SCHWAB: We're prepared to walk away from a deal but we would really be better off, we know, with a strong deal in terms of some reasonable balance between what we get with market access and what we give in domestic support. Schwab says the fact that the U.S. is set to write a new farm bill next year is not necessarily a disadvantage. SCHWAB: Everyone else knows we are rewriting the Farm Bill next year. Most people don't know which way it's likely to go. Right? So, as far as they're concerned, yeah maybe we'd do unilaterally what they'd like us to do anyway, but maybe we wouldn't. Who anticipated what the outcome of the 2002 Farm Bill would be? So there's enough uncertainty there so that we can push people up to this deadline and say, let's get a deal here. Schwab talks about what it will take for the U.S. to change our current trade proposal. SCHWAB: There is a balance between "gives" and "gets" and in this case there needs to be significantly more market access on the table before we're going to have a conversation&a serious conversation about changing our domestic support offer. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.