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Agriculture and Trade Facts
- For every additional US$1 generated through agricultural production in developing countries, economic linkages can add another US$3 to the rural economy.
- Although primary agricultural activities are gradually declining as a share of the economy, they still represent 60 percent of employment in developing countries.
- In rich countries, agriculture typically represents less than 2 percent of total national income and employment. In contrast, agriculture accounts for anywhere between 17 and 35 percent of gross domestic product in middle-to-low income countries.
- Developing countries are responsible for one-third of total agricultural trade exports.
- Agricultural tariffs in the European Union (EU) and the United States are four to five times greater than those applied to manufactured goods and sometimes exceed 100 percent.
- The US$104 billion in subsidies that the EU provides its farmers accounts for one-third of the value of the output, compared to one-fifth in the U.S.
- Beef and sugar are the most protected products in the EU. Without these tariffs, even the poorest African countries could produce exportable surpluses of these commodities.
- In the United States, the largest 7 percent of farms receive 50 percent of government subsidies, while 60 percent of US farmers receive no subsidies at all. (Oxfam)
- In 2001, US government support to the cotton industry reached US$3.4 billion, while the US controls 40 percent of the global cotton market. West Africa lost US$190 million in 2001 because of low global cotton prices, exacerbating foreign debts and balance-of-payment constraints. (International Cotton Advisory Committee)
- A 25 percent increase in the world price of cotton would cause poverty in Benin to decline by 4 percent.
- The EU accounts for 40 percent of the world's white sugar market, and the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) lowers the price of sugar by 15 percent.
- Despite modest attempts to reform the CAP in June 2003, EU subsidy spending will continue to rise until 2013.
- Without reform of agricultural trade barriers in industrialized countries, import liberalization in the developing world will perpetuate unfair competition. For example, when Haiti opened its rice market in 1995, it drove prices down 25 percent and displaced local farmers.
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