Advocacy Only Weapon Against Subsidies – Groser
February 23rd, 2009
Trade Minister, Tim Groser, has a sobering reality check for farmers regarding our ability to influence decision on imposition of subsidies. He says advocacy is the only weapon NZ has against the EU’s dairy export subsidies a thinly disguised admission there is little in practical terms NZ can do. “Let’s be blunt about this – NZ has had to live with export subsidies probably more than any country in the past 35 years. We have not got a cast-iron way through this.” Groser pressed EU officials to announce a date when the subsidies would be lifted in a side-trip to Brussels after the trade meeting in Davos. He says the key is to avoid the issue becoming “a NZ vs EU slugfest.” He’s working closely with Aust Trade Minister Simon Crean, current chairman of the Cairns Group, to ensure a broader effort.
Food miles off the radar. While the news on subsidies is not good, on a more positive note food miles didn’t feature highly at Davos, mainly because no importing nation has made any moves to introduce such measures. Groser says the concept, which is a commercial problem for distant exporters like NZ, is flawed and simplistic, because it doesn’t take into account the containerised shipping of the nation’s pastoral products. Even when transport costs from NZ to Europe are taken into account, the carbon footprint is half that of Europe for dairy and a quarter for sheep meat. “A great container ship has a carbon footprint but divided by the vast volumes coming from NZ, divided by the kilogram, it is tiny.”
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