Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. has asked the government to provide more support to farmers in terms of credit, technical assistance and tariff protection to make them more productive and competitive in the world and domestic markets. 

Lorenzo said that while the "collapse" of the World Trade Organization talks in Cancun, Mexico last Sept. 14 "may be good for us in the short term, in the long term it may not be good for us, especially if we just sit down and do nothing about it." 

He was referring to the WTO ministerial conference of 148 countries which was held in Cancun last Sept. 10 to 14 but which was adjourned without reaching an agreement on new trade rules for agricultural and industrial products. Farmers organizations from all over the world held protest actions, especially in Cancun, against WTO rules that they claimed discriminated against the poor countries. 

Lorenzo said that while waiting for the resumption of the trade talks to push its original demands, along with other developing countries, the Philippines must strengthen its commodity sectors in order to boost the quality and quantity of their production, especially food. 

"In other words, we have to make each of our farmers profitable by making them more productive, use better systems and help them market their products," stressed Lorenzo. "In due time, we will have side-by-side a commodity network that slowly but surely will make them more competitive against their foreign rivals." 

Lorenzo explained that at Cancun, the Philippines and other developing countries were telling the representatives of the rich countries that while they continued to subsidize their agricultural products, the developing countries should be allowed to give more tariff protection to their own farmers who produce "special" and "sensitive" products like vegetables, rice, corn, poultry, livestock and fruits. 

He pointed out that producers of "special and sensitive products" represent the livelihood of most farmers in the poor countries. They thus deserve more flexibility in defending their products from imports through the tariff system, he said. 

"We are telling the developed countries that they should allow us (developing nations) to impose reasonable tariffs on this sector because the tariffs will be used to improve this sector. This is a very reasonable request but they (the rich countries) did not want to grant it. At the same time, they do not want to remove or even reduce the huge subsidies they give their farmers that impart unfair competition to our products," he added. 

In requesting for more government financial support to Filipino farmers, Lorenzo pointed out that while the Philippine government allocates $13 in its budget for each of its farmers, Thailand provides $900 support for each Thai farmer and Malaysia provides $1,800. 

"But the support that these two Asian nations give their farmers is nothing compared to the $50,000 and $100,000 in subsidy the US gives each of its farmers per year. Just recently, US President George Bush even increased the government subsidy for US farmers to the level being given by European governments to their farm sectors," Lorenzo said.