EU should offer further reductions in cotton subsidies - Prodi

European countries need to make further subsidies to help African cotton farmers access better markets, the European Commission President Romano Prodi said.

Prodi told reporters in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, on Friday that while EU countries had already offered to reduce subsidies to cotton farmers by 60 percent, more negotiations were needed to effect further reductions.

"We need to take further steps because I do not think Europe can continue to protect its cotton producers in the future," Prodi said. "We need to help African countries to get a share in the (global] cotton market."

He added: "Europe needs to go further before it can ask others like the United States to stop
their subsidies to their cotton sector. If we are not good examples we cannot ask others to
change policies."

Like millions of other farmers who depend on cotton in various parts of Africa, farmers in Burkina Faso have seen their earnings from cotton drop because of subsidies that their European and American counterparts enjoy on the global market.

As with their Sahelian neighbours, like Mali and Benin, cotton in Burkina Faso accounts for five to 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and more than 60 percent of export revenues. The farmers in West African cotton-producing countries have lost millions of dollars due to the subsidies.

Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaoré was amongst the strongest critics of subsidies paid to Western cotton at the last World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

Compaoré complained at Cancun that "subsidies provided to cotton farmers in rich countries are 60 per cent higher than the overall gross domestic product (GDP) of Burkina Faso", adding that such subsidies had effectively deprived Burkina Faso of around 12 per cent of its export revenues in 2001. But Cancun failed to meet demands by African delegates for a a halt to subsidies by developed countries to their cotton producers.

According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), annual subsidies granted to American farmers are estimated at US $4 billion while the European Union and China grant $700 million and $1.2 billion respectively.

Prodi's visit to Burkina Faso followed earlier visits to Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire.