Seeds of discontent

U.S. farmers are worried that a new global agreement that would govern the way they raise and sell crops would include too many compromises with other countries, benefiting overseas competitors.

Ministers from 146 countries are set to meet in Cancun, Mexico, starting today to rework World Trade Organization rules in the hope of spurring global economic growth. A new agriculture agreement is the meeting’s centerpiece.

Across the country, farmers see opportunities but are worried about foreign competition.

Chesapeake Fields, a Chestertown, Md., farm operation, is managing a new project to plant about 2,000 acres of a unique soybean variety on the Delmarva Peninsula and export the crop to Japan.

The company, troubled this year more by local weather than foreign competition, is opening up a niche in the foreign market with a carefully developed product — a win in increasingly global agriculture markets.

“I think there is tremendous opportunity with [international] trade,” said John Hall, Chesapeake’s president.

But, like many U.S. farmers, Mr. Hall is at best ambivalent about plans to liberalize agricultural markets.

“Do we open markets at the expense of the American farmer? Third World countries have become our competitors for commodities, and that’s eroded profitability,” Mr. Hall said.

The Bush administration is keen to reach an agreement that would reduce costs of selling U.S. products overseas and at least change the way governments financially support farmers by eliminating programs that distort trade.

“Year in and year out we produce far more than we need to fully meet the demand here at home, so we naturally turn to the foreign markets,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said last week in a conference call with reporters.

The Agriculture Department forecasts that exports next year will reach $57 billion, up $1.5 billion from this year. Cotton, rice, wheat, and animal products, such as beef, are major sellers. About 38 percent of all soybeans are sold overseas.

“So it’s obvious that we must have increased access to the fast-growing markets elsewhere in the world, and we have to bring down the trade barriers in order to gain this access,” Mrs. Veneman said.

But some farmers say the proposed solution is not so obvious. Groups that represent family farmers, like Farm Aid, are skeptical of free trade and its effect on farm incomes.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, another free-trade skeptic, blames burgeoning exports for lower prices on farm goods and says that WTO proposals would hurt farmers around the world.

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