American crop grower groups say the recent ‘Challenge paper’ from Doha Round agriculture negotiations committee chairman, Ambassador Crawford Falconer, from New Zealand, was not a step forward in negotiations. In his paper, Crawford outlined ranges for farm subsidy and tariff cuts in a bid to get an agreement on agriculture in the snail-paced Doha Round.

The main cause of the Doha farm impasse is widely seen as the refusal so far of the US to budge from its October 2005 offer of placing the maximum level of allowed overall trade-distorting domestic support at $22.7 billion when its actual spending level was $US19.7 billion in 2005.

"It is frankly inconceivable that the US will come out of this negotiation with an entitlement to spend more on overall trade distorting domestic support than it had when it came in," Falconer said, arguing that the number for the US would have to be ‘less than 22 billion’ and ‘will be in the teens’.

Though some members argue for the ‘very low teens’ (notably the G20 demand on the US for $12 billion), Falconer said that would be ‘a real stretch’ in negotiating terms.