Date: 05 Mar 2000
Time: 18:41:12
Remote Name: 24.30.137.96
03/05/2000 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2000.
ORLANDO, Fla., March 5 (Reuters) - The American Soybean Association (ASA) on Sunday challenged Vice President Al Gore "to show us your leadership" by intervening to include more soybeans in U.S. food aid programmes in a bid to boost prices.
"While campaigning in Iowa, Vice President Gore said 'I'll move heaven and earth to try to help family farmers'. If the vice president wants to help farmers, it's time he showed us his leadership by moving the soy food aid programme forward," ASA President Marc Curtis told a news conference.
The programme involves an ASA proposal for a total of 3.7 million tons of soybeans and soybean products to be included in U.S. humanitarian schemes.
He said a government announcement last month that 425,000 tons of soy will be included in the Clinton Administration's most recent food aid package was a "small first step".
Curtis said that by using large quantities of surplus soybeans, the programme would boost prices which would help to reduce the government's so-called loan deficiency payments that set floor prices for farmers' products.
He also said the ASA would actively lobby Congress to approve permanent Normal Trade Relations status for China this year. "It's important to understand that U.S. markets are already open to Chinese products. Establishing permanent Normal Trade Relations with China will open China's vast markets to U.S. products," he said on the sidelines of a commodity conference.
He said the benefits of a Sino-U.S. agreement reached last year that locks in low applied tariffs on soybeans and feed ingredient soymeal would bypass U.S. farmers if Congress fails to grant China permanent NTR status.
The Agriculture Department estimates that the trade deal the United States negotiated with China would boost farm exports by at least $2 billion annually by the year 2005.
Under the pact, which sets the terms for China's entry into the World Trade Organisation, China would slash barriers on a wide range of farm and other goods.
Currently, the United States sells about $1 billion worth of farm goods each year to China. A vote on the permanent NTR is expected in June or July this year.
Curtis also said decades-long U.S. economic sanctions against Iran , Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Sudan was a "recurring nightmare" that blocks business in markets worth $554 million annually for soybeans and its products.
"Clearly, one of the greatest barriers of free trade exists right here in the United States in the form of unilateral economic sanctions. U.S. farmers cannot sell their products to Iran , Libya, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.
"The use of unilateral economic sanctions by our government has been a recurring nightmare for soybean farmers and all of U.S. agriculture for nearly three decades," he said.