From opposite sides of the battle over world trade subsidies, small farmers from the United States find they share many of the same concerns as West Africa s poor cotton planters. A group of farmers from US agricultural heartlands like Kansas, Illinois and Virginia visited Malis arid interior last week and witnessed the suffering fair trade campaigners say is inflicted by multibillion-dollar US cotton subsidies.

As G8 leaders called for a prompt breakthrough in deadlocked trade talks to help alleviate poverty, the farmers said lower subsidies could help producers in rich and poor countries. "Im in the same shape as these African farmers," said Kenneth Gallaway, a third generation cotton grower from Texas.

"Im a small farmer and my hope is that we eliminate or even reduce the subsidies. Id like to see that stop some of these large farmers overproducing, or face going out of business." He said Washington s handouts were causing hardship for small farmers in Africa and the US alike by encouraging big businesses to overproduce, thereby driving down prices.

The six farmers, who visited Mali at the invitation of the British-based charity Oxfam, hope to raise US public awareness of the impact of subsidies in Africa by lobbying congressmen and writing articles in the local press. Mali, ranked as the worlds fourth poorest country last year, relies on cotton for its economic lifeblood. The cotton sector employs a third of its 10 million people but export prices have been slashed by multibillion-dollar US subsidies. This year, US exports are expected to top 16 million bales, versus West Africas production of just over 4 million.

"We have seen the livelihood of these people being stolen from them in a very real way," said Leo Tammi, a sheep farmer from Mount Sidney, Virginia. "We need to raise our voices and say that is wrong: there is a thief among us!"

Booming exports

Many farmers in the United States say, however, it is booming exports from other producers like India and Brazil which are driving down international prices, not US subsidies. "The volume of cotton for export has increased dramatically," said Jarral Neeper, spokesman for a cotton cooperative in California. "The cotton market is just difficult everywhere. Even the big guys are struggling to survive."

While the US farmers on the Oxfam trip recognised they would be bankrupt without subsidies, they suggested the payments could be changed to not just reward production. "Instead of having subsidies on production we could direct them toward things like resource conservation," said Gary Melander, a grain farmer from Salina, Kansas. "This is a time to start conserving oil, conserving fertiliser: the farmer who learns how to use less of those inputs should be rewarded."

Even in the dirt-poor Malian villages they visited, people expressed concern over the increasing use of chemicals. "One villager planting with a hoe was concerned about the use of pesticides -- I thought, my God we re worried about that in the United States and weve got the same situation building in Africa," Melander said.

With the US Congress due to authorize a new Farm Bill next year, the farmers expressed hope that legislators would take steps to protect the traditional rural way of life. "We may come from very diverse areas of the country, very diverse areas of farming, but we all have one thing in common: the survival of the family farm across the world, not just the United States," said Dexter Randall, a dairy farmer from Troy, Vermont. "That is what is really at stake."
(Por Daniel Flynn, Planet Ark, 18/07/2006)