The LDCs represent 11 per cent of the world population but have only 0.4 per cent share of global trade, according to official statistics.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), based in Washington, estimated that Bangladesh could get its farm trading volume increased by over 16 per cent provided the developed economies liberalise their farm policies.

Commerce Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, who will lead a 14-member delegation to the fifth WTO ministerial meeting in Mexican city of Cancun beginning on September 10, has consulted the agriculture ministry on farm subsidy, thought to be the focal point of the meet.

A high official said the agriculture ministry during pre-Cancun meetings furnished the commerce minister with relevant documents and recommendations.

But the ministry has no representation to Bangladesh's Cancun delegation -- an issue both Agriculture Minister MK Anwar and State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir preferred not to comment on.

The LDCs' plea will also include duty- and quota-free entry of all agricultural products, in primary, semi-primary and processed forms, to the developed countries.

Earlier, the commerce minister at a press briefing regretted that the European Union subsidised $2 a day for a cow, while a person living under poverty line earned less than $1 a day.

Research Director of Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies (BIDS) Dr Asaduzzaman told The Daily Star yesterday, "Now that vegetables like capsicum and French bean are grown in Bangladesh, it can fetch more earnings from farm exports provided the developed economies lower their farm subsidies."

He said the level of subsidies on agriculture in Bangladesh is low but appreciated a recent government move to provide up to Tk 500 crore in subsidy on diesel-run irrigation pumps.

BIDS Director General Dr Quazi Shahabuddin said any 'cosmetic cuts' in huge subsidies of the US and EU would not redress the LDCs' agony.

"Protectionism and subsidies by industrialised nations cost developing countries about $24 billion annually in lost agricultural and agro-industrial income," says an IFPRI study released on August 26.

"Small-scale farmers in developing countries have a hard time competing against subsidised products that are dumped on their local markets. One more kilogram of subsidised sugar in the European Union could very well mean one less kilogram produced in Kenya or Guatemala. Another bale of subsidised cotton in the United States may mean less production in Mali. Or another ton of subsidised rice in Japan can have the same displacement effect in Vietnam," Diaz-Bonilla, an IFPRI researcher, noted.

Diaz-Bonilla said the best thing the developing countries could do is to invest in agricultural research and development, roads and rural infrastructure, human capital of the poor, and ensure macroeconomic stability, good governance, and the rule of law and peace.

"The upcoming WTO ministerial conference in Cancun provides an opportunity for world governments to agree on a plan to make agricultural trade more fair."

About cotton, the official sources in Dhaka said the Asian LDCs at Cancun would express solidarity with the African LDCs, affected by subsidies on cotton by the developed countries. They will strongly support action initiated by some African LDCs in the WTO to remedy the negative consequences of subsidies that affect millions of farmers, the sources said.

"In the past four years, the region (West Africa) recorded a 31 per cent decrease in export revenue even though production rose by 14 per cent. The decline in cotton prices has cost the region about $200 million, far in excess of what it receives in US aid and debt relief," Prof Mills Soko of University of Warwick, UK, wrote in the current issue of The New Agriculturist.

He said the developing countries have become disillusioned by the double standards imposed by developed countries that demand poor countries open up their markets but fail to provide access to their own.

"If significant progress is not made in Cancun, we are likely to see a collapse in the global trading system that will have serious consequences for the world economy," said Soko.

In Dhaka Declaration adopted after last June's LDCs' trade ministers' meet, it was said agriculture is protected through high tariffs in many developed countries, and products from the LDCs are sometimes denied market access. "Export subsidies and domestic support maintained by the developed countries also depress world prices for agricultural commodities, undermining the competitiveness of the LDCs' agriculture."