Madam, - Martin Mansergh (Opinion, August 6th) says European farmers should "not be sacrificed on the neo-liberal altar". We agree.
However, with recent revelations that some Irish farmers are receiving as much as € a week from the Common Agricultural Policy (while others in Europe receive millions each year), it would seem the EU is well able to cushion the blow of any changes to agricultural trade.
On the other hand, millions of farmers in the developing world who, together with their families, make up the majority of those living in extreme poverty, are being sacrificed on that neo-liberal altar by the prescriptions of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and are being forced to compete with the highly subsidised exports of the European Union and the United States.
The upcoming World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December offers us an opportunity to help ensure that poor countries have the power to decide the trade policies that are right for their development needs. It also gives us a chance to provide a more level playing field in agricultural trade by eliminating those subsidised exports which Senator Mansergh rightly, but understatedly, points out are distorting the world market.
These opportunities, though, will be realised only if developed countries invest real political will into achieving what was billed as a development round of trade negotiations.
Ireland as a rich, highly developed country, can - and should - support fairer agricultural trade rules as a key part of those talks. The poor deserve no less. - Yours, etc,
COLIN ROCHE, Advocacy Officer, Oxfam Ireland, Burgh Quay, Dublin 2.