Liu Huanqing, a cotton farmer in Cangzhou of north China's Hebei Province, felt distracted recently. Liu lost nearly 2,000 yuan in cotton trade earlier this year due to lowered price of cotton.
Liu's experience coincided with the figure given by Niu Dun, Chinese vice-minister of agriculture, at the on-going sixth WTO Ministerial Conference, which opened Tuesday in Hong Kong.
Niu said that the United States grants its cotton farmers US$3 billion of subsidies every year, resulting in large amounts of low-priced cotton exports to China, to severely affect the life of 46 million Chinese cotton growing families.
Oxfam Group, a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organization, also said in a report that the subsidy by the United States violated World Trade Organization rules and drove 720,000 Chinese cotton farmers out of work.
Agriculture, including the cotton issue, is the key topic and most difficult part of the Doha Round talks, which WTO members are having heated discussions at the Hong Kong conference.
Though agricultural trade accounts for no more than 10 percent of world trade, it maintains a very sensitive topic at the conference because agricultural trade has been severely distorted in the past years, as 2.5 billion rural residents live in developing countries.
China, still with a 740-million rural population, is a major agricultural country and its agricultural trade plays a very important role in its national economy.
Since its entry into the WTO in 2001, China began to cut its tariffs according to the commitments to the world trade organization. Now its overall agricultural tariff has been slashed to 15.3 percent from the previous 54 percent and is expected to drop further to 15.2 percent in 2006.
The world's average agricultural tariff stands at 62 percent.
"No other member in the WTO history has made such a huge cut in such a short period of time, even the developed members," said Bo Xilai, Chinese minister of commerce, who is now in Hong Kong attending the WTO conference.
Experts noted that China is now facing a very unfair international agricultural trade environment. Many developed countries, like the European Union and the United States, have various kinds of subsidies to their farmers and set technical barriers toward Chinese products.
"From the strategic perspective, China needs a fair trade environment if it wants to solve its agricultural problems. If the Doha Round talks could move forward on agricultural issues, namely, market access, domestic support and export subsidies, a more fair and open world market might be built," said Cheng Guoqiang, researcher from China's State Council Development and Research Center.
Cheng said that China is competitive in high-valued farm products, like vegetables and fruits, but vulnerable in products like grain, cotton and oil-bearing crops.
Due to lowering tariffs, China has become a net importer of agricultural products since 2004.
Niu admitted that as the grace time for China's WTO entry on agriculture is coming to an end, the country will feel increasing pressure on farm product imports in the next few years, which will drastically affect major agricultural production bases and farmers.
"China stands for cutting agricultural tariffs and quotas among WTO members, but those with higher subsidies should take the initiative," said Niu. At the Hong Kong conference, Niu denied a proposal bought up by the United States, which links the cutting of subsidies to its farmers with more access to China's cotton market.
"We cannot put pressure on our cotton growers any longer, as it concerns the livelihood of 120 million cotton farmers and cotton- related industrial workers," Niu said.