Financial Times (London, England)

May 10, 2005 Tuesday
London Edition 1

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 268 words

HEADLINE: Move by WTO 'is threat to food aid'

BYLINE: By FRANCES WILLIAMS

DATELINE: GENEVA

BODY:


Moves in the World Trade Organisation to stop the dumping of agricultural surpluses under the guise of food aid could put genuine assistance at risk just as the need for it is rising, the World Food Programme warned yesterday.

James Morris, WFP executive director, said the United Nations agency, which last year accounted for half the world's food aid, was "absolutely opposed" to any new rules requiring food aid to be exclusively in cash.

Food aid was put on the agenda of the Doha trade talks by the European Union and agricultural exporting countries in order to stop subsidised exports by the US under bilateral food aid programmes. But clumsily drafted restrictions could discourage in-kind donations, now coming from developing countries such as India and Malawi as well as traditional donors including the US and France.

"If the trade negotiations are not properly thought through, a lot of people are going to be put at risk," Mr Morris said in Geneva before meeting WTO representatives of African and least-developed countries.

Mr Morris said it should be a precondition for any trade accord that donors increase food aid to at least 11m tonnes a year, the total donated in 2001, when the Doha global trade talks were launched.

Last year food aid fell to 7.5m tonnes, half what it was in 1999. Meanwhile, the number of chronically hungry people had risen 8 per cent to 852m. Though the WTO's aim is to prevent "commercial displacement" through unfair competition with other suppliers, Mr Morris said the test for aid should be its end use, not whether it was surplus. www.wfp.org www.ft.com/globaleconomy

LOAD-DATE: May 9, 2005