With the increasing bargaining position of developing countries, the Poor, who mostly live in developing countries are expected to make better use of the round for the following two reasons. Firstly, poverty issues have been the main agenda of most international meetings and discussions between international organizations, such as United Nations, during the last decade. The sheer number of poor people has caused an increase in the number of infected people by various endemic illnesses such as HIV and TB. Moreover, this situation has helped fuel regional conflicts and terrorism (Abbott, 2003). The UN with its Millennium Development Goals has helped to ensure that poverty reduction is now gaining its most significant momentum from an international perspective.

Secondly, most of the deadlocked agricultural issues stem from the high number and intensive nature of government policies related to the agricultural sector in industrialized countries. The global trading system is still very much biased against the Poor. An average poor person faces twice the level of trade tariff than an average rich person. Agricultural subsidies in the rich world total US$ 300 billion, more than Africa's GDP and six times the amount of development aid to poor countries (World Bank, 2003). In 2002, direct support to farmers by countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) totaled around US$ 235 billion.

Poor farmers cannot escape the poverty trap if they are forced to compete with products subsidized by the treasuries of the richest countries. Solutions include effectively pursuing the process of reform in the three areas of market access, domestic support and export competition, while providing greater flexibility for developing countries to pursue rural development and food security ( FAO, 2003).

Following Abbott (2003), an alternative approach to realize this objective is to implement so called Critical View (CV) in the Doha Round. Under this approach, the ultimate goal of trade liberalization is development and fair trade is a way to achieve the goal. Therefore, under the Doha Round, this approach should emphasize the following efforts:

• Rectifying imbalances. Various policies that cause imbalances between developing countries and industrialized countries and inhibit development should be eliminated or reduced. These policies include TRIPS, general agreement on trade in services, and subsidy policies in industrialized countries.
• Rethinking reciprocity. It is unfair to expect full reciprocity” between developing countries and industrialized countries because of differences between economic capacity, the various political situations, and the vulnerability of developing countries. An alternative offered by this approach is to place reciprocity based on the relative state of development.
• Special and differential treatment (SDT) and flexibility. SDT is intended to improve the markets of developing countries in industrialized countries and to give flexibility to developing countries to intervene in their markets for the sake of development.
• Trade issues of special interest to developing countries. Under the Doha Round, issues that are the main concern of developing countries should be prioritized. These issues include the vulnerability of developing countries' exports due to technical inferiority price risk, and the dependency of developing countries on only a few exportable commodities.
• Food security and rural development. More than 800 million people in developing countries are very vulnerable to food insecurity. Therefore, various support to developing countries to overcome this problem and to promote rural development should be one of the main issues of the round.

Considering most people cultivating secondary crops are poor, the success of developing countries in implementing critical view approach in the Doha Round could have significant benefits for them. It will be a daunting task but the Doha Round, labeled as a development round, is one of the best opportunities for decision makers to fight for the poor, including secondary crops' farmers ˇ

Written by Wayan R. Susila, staff, UNESCAP-CAPSA, Bogor, Indonesia.
(References available upon request)