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Agriculture remains critical to the economy and society of most developing countries. The G-20[1] Ministers have firmly believed that developing countries must garner collective strength if they are to succeed in eliminating the practices of a small group of rich nations that provide huge amounts of support and protection to their farmers, depress prices, gain undue market shares and compromise the food security and livelihoods of billions of farmers across developing countries. The realization of the true potential of the agriculture sector in developing countries has been impeded for far too long by the multiplicity of distorting practices on products that are of export interest to them.

Accordingly, the G-20 Ministerial Meeting at New Delhi on 18 and 19^th March 2005 took stock of the status of negotiations on agriculture in the WTO. The meeting noted that there has been useful momentum in the negotiations more recently. However, there was need to intensify and secure deeper understanding on some key technical aspects before commitments by Members on various trade policy measures could be negotiated. Moreover agriculture negotiations must continue to provide further impetus to other areas in the Doha Work Programme in order to achieve a balanced outcome consistent with the aspirations of the vast majority of peoples across the globe and especially of the poorer among them.

Ministers also adopted the G-20’s strategy and position so as to guide their negotiators in the months ahead to secure an agreement on modalities by the Sixth Ministerial Meeting towards the end of this year. This agreement on modalities is a necessary step to completing the negotiations by 2006. It remains acknowledged by all that the lead role played by the G-20 has been changing the dynamics of agriculture sector negotiations since it was formed in August 2003. To this end, Ministers adopted a Declaration on 19^th March 2005.

The G-20’s approach remains open and inclusive towards the specific situations of other developing countries. The New Delhi Meeting included the Group Coordinators of broad-based developing country alliances, namely, the G-33 alliance on Special Products and SSM, the Africa Group, the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries, the Caribbean Community, and the Least Developed countries, as Observers.

[1] Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

Ministers noted with concern that some WTO Members continue to prevent progress on the question of Ad Valorem Equivalents (AVEs). Ministers cautioned against using this technical question for bargaining purposes and urged WTO Members concerned to come up with the appropriate data and to agree to a transparent methodology and a verification procedure that will ensure accurate conversion of non ad-valorem tariffs. A prompt solution to this question is essential for progress to be made in the negotiations.

G-20 Ministers adopted as below the logo for the Group, with flexibility to individual Members to select their own colour scheme: