'THOUSANDS OF FAMILY FARMERS WILL BECOME CASUALTIES TO THIS ADJUSTMENT'

摘要

Will the GATT agreement, over the long term, cripple farmer-run, supply - management marketing boards? By the time domestic farm policies are re-engineered to accommodate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) rules, hundreds of thousands of family farmers around the world may well have become casualties of this wholesale "adjustment" to a neo-classical market-driven economic model. The GATT deal was hailed by trade negotiators as a breakthrough, and in many ways it was. But its primary effects will not be seen in global agricultural commodity trading patterns-these are firmly cemented in moulds already laid down through decades of cross-border commerce. Its greatest impact will be on the environment, as wellas the domestic farm and food programs in GATT/WTO member nations.