GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Trade ministers from the 15 countries of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) said yesterday they were concerned about negative effects from the recently approved US farm bill that gives millions of dollars in subsidies to American farmers.

The ministers’ two-day meeting in Guyana comes just days after both Argentina and Brazil said they would challenge the US bill at the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation, saying the bill would badly hurt their economies.

Richard Bernal, head of the Barbados-based Regional Negotiating Machinery, said the United States was giving the wrong signal while pushing smaller economies in the hemisphere to open their markets under the Free Trade Areas of the Americas arrangement by 2005.

“It is an unfortunate signal,” said Bernal, a former Jamaican ambassador to the United States. “It is going in the opposite direction to the one which we are all moving.”

Caribbean trade ministers and heads of government must examine the bill’s effect on regional economies, and then “we will follow that up with more direct expressions to the United States”, Bernal said.

Caribbean rice and sugar producers, for example, fear their exports to the United States could be reduced or their earnings lessened, as the subsidies would allow American farmers to sell at prices vastly lower than they produce.

The bill authorises $180 billion in spending on US farmers over the next 10 years — a $73.5-billion increase over existing programmes.

Argentina said it stands to lose $1.4 billion annually as a result of the bill, which was put into affect by US President George W Bush two weeks ago. Brazil said it would lose about $2.4 billion each year.

European Union farm ministers yesterday also agreed to delay until July talks on reforming Europe’s annual farm budget, which includes generous subsidy programmes that have come under fire from trading partners, including the United States.

EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler said in Brussels that ministers needed time to assess the affects of the bill. A review was originally scheduled for June.

In Guyana, trade ministers said the Caribbean would have serious losses because of the US bill, which opponents say violates world trade rules by boosting subsidies by 70 per cent and could possibly distort world agriculture prices.

“The effect on the agricultural countries is expected to be severe,” said Norman Girvan, general secretary of the Trinidad-based Association of Caribbean States.

“The subsidies will support large increases in US domestic production and will shut out a large part of foreign imports,” he said.