Farm Subsidies

Industrialized nations producing agricultural surpluses should make a "substantial reduction" in subsidies paid to farmers, the chairman of the World Food Conference recommended Friday at the end of a two-day meeting. "There is no more appalling spectacle than the contrast between the surpluses of industrialized countries and the deprivation and malnutrition of millions in the Third World," said Lord Plumb of Britain, the conference chairman and the president of the European Parliament.

With an Easter deadline looming for a liberalized international trade agreement, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl plans to press President Bush for concessions this weekend in an effort to end the long stalemate over farm subsidies. Kohl is due to arrive in Washington today and spend Saturday with Bush at Camp David, then return to the White House for a joint press conference and head back to Bonn late Sunday.

European Community ministers agreed on a package of cuts in farm subsidies, unblocking stalled world trade talks, officials said today. Italian ministers said the vote, after two days of intense talks, was unanimous. EC ministers met six times previously without reaching agreement on proposals by the EC's Executive Commission. The deadlock on cutting subsidies for European farmers had threatened the entire four-year round of world trade talks.

The United States and the European Community on Monday appeared close to settling a dispute on farm subsidies that has been the main obstacle to concluding a global trade pact. But France called the progress inadequate. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy hinted that the United States and the 12-nation trading bloc had settled a bitter dispute over cuts in government payments to farmers. U.S.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng claimed Wednesday that France's refusal to include agricultural subsidies on the agenda for upcoming world trade talks could undermine the session. "That would be catastrophic," Lyng told reporters on the third day of a weeklong meeting among delegates of the 92-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The meeting is intended to set guidelines for a new round of GATT trade talks to begin next year in Geneva.

Top American trade negotiators met Friday with officials of the European Economic Community for a series of talks expected to focus on the contentious issue of farm subsidies. Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter and Trade Representative Carla Hills were greeted by Frans Andriessen, the top foreign affairs official of the 12-nation trading bloc, at the start of two days of talks.

It was a spectacle to make a Kansas senator blush. On April Fools' Day, a freighter laden with 20,000 tons of Turkish wheat docked in New Zealand, courtesy of the U.S. government. Turkey is not a big grain exporter. For some years it hasn't even been able to meet its own needs. But U.S. grain subsidies under the Export Enhancement Program (EEP) have enabled Turkey to buy cut-price wheat from the United States and sell its own wheat in American, and even Australian, export markets.

Leaders of the 12 European Communities nations met for a two-day summit here Friday with their dream of a frontier-free Western Europe by 1992 clouded by an array of acrimonious disputes. After more than six hours of discussions in a converted dockside warehouse, there were few signs of agreement on any of the major issues.

President Reagan, who less than two years ago signed the most expensive farm aid bill in history, called Friday for the elimination of agricultural subsidies worldwide by the year 2000 as a way of promoting better world economic health.

The United States and 95 other countries agreed Friday to negotiate "a substantial, progressive reduction" in agricultural trade barriers and farm subsidies around the world, breaking an impasse that has stalled global trade liberalization talks for months. Although the accord, hammered out in Geneva, does not go as far as Washington had hoped, it nevertheless provides the basis for including farm trade under international trade guidelines for the first time.