Wednesday 27 August 2014

Can Africa break the Doha round of talks?

While many experts view agriculture as the solution to the continent's problems, the fact is that Africa will not experience the so called 'green revolution' anytime soon. The continent has very much wanted to copy from the Asian green revolution, but these efforts have largely not borne much fruit. According to an analysis by Andrew L. Stoler, "In 2001, many would have argued that the Uruguay Round agriculture negotiations produced a 'sloppy result' where big players like the USA and European Community had far too much
flexibility in how they implemented their commitments." The subsequent Doha round of talks did not produce much fruit. The US and EU still give farmers subsidies, ensuring that the agricultural produce from these countries are artificially low. This makes African produce harder to compete on the international level, and even sometimes, the Western countries dump their agricultural goods on the African market, driving poor rural African farmers out of the market.

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