October 2, 2008

Farm Bureau president participates in WTO discussions

RICHMOND—The president of Virginia’s largest farmers’ advocacy group was among American producers who discussed trade issues in Geneva recently with ambassadors from World Trade Organization member countries.

Virginia Farm Bureau President Wayne F. Pryor and other members of the American Farm Bureau Federation Trade Advisory Committee traveled to Switzerland in mid-September.

The Goochland County beef and grain producer is one of 10 state Farm Bureau presidents serving three-year terms on the committee. While in Geneva, committee members met with ambassadors of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the European Union.

It was an aggressively scheduled two-and-a-half days, Pryor said. “We weren’t planning on stopping for lunch, to be honest.”

In general, he said, the committee’s message was that the United States is interested in reaching a trade agreement but not interested in making additional concessions to gain access to foreign markets—and not asking other nations to do anything it has not already done. “Our message was ‘We are ready to talk if you’re serious.’”

There are 153 WTO member nations. Agriculture gets considerable attention in trade talks, Pryor said, “because in more than 100 of those countries, about the only thing they’ve got to trade is agriculture.”

That’s not the case among some of the larger, more industrialized nations. The AFBF committee was in Geneva when representatives of the G7 nations—Australia, Brazil, China, the European Union, India, Japan and United States—were called in for negotiations.

The transition from focusing on issues related specifically to Virginia or U.S. agriculture was not as challenging as it might have been a decade ago, Pryor said of his experience. “Virginia moved into the global market some time ago, and we certainly have one of the largest export markets on the East Coast right here in Norfolk.”

Even outside of the meetings on the committee agenda, the trip offered a global perspective on events at home.

“It’s amazing how the Swiss were so interested in our presidential election,” Pryor said. The most frequent question he was asked was which candidate he thought would win. The second question was why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did not get her party’s nomination.

Pryor said there has been considerable interest among WTO countries in reaching an agreement before the election.

“They see the urgency, but what they don’t seem to realize is that we do transition from one administration to another pretty well. We tried to emphasize that on Jan. 20, everything doesn’t stop in this country and then start over.”

Contact Pam Wiley, VFBF publications editor, at 804-290-1128.