"There seems to be an agreed objective on a timeframe in the sense that delegations should aim to agree on a framework at the latest before the summer break," said New Zealand Ambassador Tim Groser, who is head of the farm trade talks group.

"There is a very clear consensus on this," Groser told WTO member representatives as quoted by a spokeman.

For most delegations, an agreement would not necessarily give clear figures on such issues as reducing farm subsidies.

For Groser, "the biggest difficulty is market access" and "a lot of work needs to be done".

The delicate question of subsidies, which many poor WTO members consider to harm their exports, is politically difficult for many countries, but a lot of technical work has been done, Groser said.

WTO member states tried to revive deadlocked trade liberalisation talks in a meeting of the organisation's agriculture committee this week in Geneva.

"There is a welcome shift towards a listening mode, but the problem solving phase still lies ahead," Groser noted.

The WTO has planned four more weeks of talks before mid-July to try to strike a deal on agriculture trade liberalisation.

The talks are at the heart of the so-called Doha round of international trade negotiations that were launched in November 2001 and which in theory are supposed to be concluded by the end of this year.

Agriculture trade has been one of the stickiest topics on the agenda.

The European Union's trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, has atacked WTO director general Supachai Panitchpakdi over the issue, accusing him of using exaggerated figures to refuse the EU the right to give subsidies to its farmers.

In a letter date March 5, which AFP saw Friday, Lamy said he was struck "with some dismay" by remarks made by Supachai in San Jose, Costa Rica, at the end of February.

In an interview, the WTO head had estimated that developing countries granted subsidies worth one billion dollars per day to their farmers, creating a major obstacle to free trade.

"Should I remind you that this figure does not in any way correspond to actual budgetary outlays?," Lamy wrote.

"The honest figure would be around 100 billion dollars and less than 45 billion dollars a year in the European Union," he added.

"The European Union -- as any other country -- has a legitimate right to choose to support its agriculture in order to reach food security, safety and quality, to protect its natural environment and to maintain rural livelihood. That is a collective preference to which we will not renounce," he wrote.