| Abstract: | The Cairns Group was formed out of frustration among comparatively efficient agricultural exporting countries about a series of changes in the conduct of world agricultural trade over which they, as individual countries, could have no influence. They are collectively significant as producers of agricultural products, with more value added in agriculture than either the EC or the United States, and as agricultural exporters, with more such exports than the EC and the United States combined. Their cohesion, stemming from the reduction in their net agricultural export earnings by more than half as a consequence of protection in industrial countries, and their unique combination of industrial and developing countries has given them an extraordinary influence over the conduct of the Uruguay Round. This article quantifies their collective interest in agricultural trade reform, reviews their contributions to the Round and examines their interest in the reforms which are most likely to emerge from it. |
