Members of the World Trade Organization will meet this week in Cancun to discuss the future of agriculture trade policies.

According to The Associated Press, negotiators from 146 countries met on Wednesday to attempt to come to an agreement on stalled global policies regarding trade and agriculture.

March 2003 was the original deadline for conditions of new global policies to be in place; however, no agreement could be made. The conditions would describe how a final agreement, which is due Jan. 1, 2005, would be shaped.

Mark Edelman, professor of agricultural economics, said the meeting in Cancun will help members of the WTO clarify policies.

“[The meeting is an] opportunity to narrow the lines of compromise,” Edelman said.

When dealing with agricultural trade policy there are more contentions to deal with, Edelman said. This creates an issue deep-seeded with the member nations because agriculture is viewed to be a necessity of life and each nation wishes to be self-sufficient in terms of food, he said.

In the past, conferences have solved few major issues and deadlines continue to be pushed back, Edelman said. With 146 member nations, coming to an agreement that suits everyone is no easy task, he added. Nations such as Japan are not interested in liberalizing trade, Edelman said.

Japan, one of the world’s leading producers of rice, has high measures of agricultural protection and if trade were liberalized they would lose control of the market, he said. “Developing nations have been pressing to have the U.S., European Union and Japan liberalize trade,” said Harvey Lapan, professor of economics. Liberalizing trade would increase market access for developing nations and allow them to partake in exporting goods to the rich world, Lapan said.

During the last two rounds of WTO meetings, the United States has claimed it wants trade liberalization; however, the United States does protect certain agricultural interests such as cotton and sugar, Lapan said.

Jacinto Fabiosa, scientist for the Center of Agricultural and Rural Development, said trade liberalization would benefit Iowa farmers in several ways: farmers would be able to export more, and the amount of taxes on exported goods would decrease and market access would increase.

If taxes are low, countries won’t be able to subsidize farmers as much, thus reducing the amount of government spending and driving prices down, Fabiosa said. Lapan said the United States’ goal is to keep farm income high and the United States believes liberalizing trade will help meet that goal.

“If we liberalize, the world trade in corn would increase,” he said.

According to the AP, during Wednesday’s meeting thousands of poor farmers, believing more trade would hurt them financially, clashed with riot police as they attempted to storm the meeting. One protester died after ceremoniously stabbing himself.

—The Associated Press contributed to this article