The 1999 round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks will begin in Seattle, Washington, November 30, 1999. During this round of agricultural trade talks, the U.S. and other nations will attempt to:

• weaken "state trading organizations" like the CWB;
• increase market access by reducing tariffs (including those which protect Canada's cost-of-production-based supply-management agencies); and
• further globalize, accelerate, and deregulate the planet's food production, distribution, and trading systems.

While these threats lie in the near future, the effects of the WTO and other trade agreements are having an effect on farm families and rural communities right now. According to the federal government, the current WTO agreement required the termination of the Crow Benefit and dictated the terms of the ill-designed AIDA program [see sidebar story]. The upcoming WTO negotiations threaten to further impoverish and disempower farmers and other citizens.

The NFU has been extremely active on trade issues. The NFU's WTO-1999 committee consists of Women's President Shannon Storey, Vice-President Fred Tait, and Region 1 (Maritimes) Coordinator Randall Affleck. Funding permitting, some or all of these committee members will travel to Seattle in late November. A new NFU volunteer, Audra Kroeger, has agreed to act as interim secretary to this NFU committee. In addition, past President Nettie Wiebe continues to represent the NFU as North American Region Coordinator of the Via Campesina and will be attending the Seattle WTO launch in that capacity.

While the WTO talks present an enormous threat to family farm agriculture, the Seattle kickoff will present an opportunity for those struggling to create an alternative, citizen-centred trade and investment system. Activists, globalization-critics, writers, trade unionists, students, and progressive thinkers from around the world will converge on Seattle to protest, exchange information, and plan strategies.

November 30, 1999 kicks off, not only the latest corporate-directed attempt to circumvent democratic sovereignty, but also a renewed worldwide resistance to that agenda.

Sources:	A Profile of Employment in the Agri-Food Chain, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, April 1999
	StatFacts, Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, April 22,1999

Back to Issue Index

Back to Union Farmer Index

Back to NFU Home Page