WTO agreement calls for end to farm subsidies by 2013

From SFGate.com - WTO talks end with draft pact on farm exports All 149 members must still approve the call for an end to all subsidies by 2013

Hong Kong -- Trade ministers cobbled together a last-minute, face-saving agreement that saved the World Trade Organization meeting from collapse, but put off until next year a more sweeping pact, following six days of talks marked by discord inside the meeting and violent street protests outside. he draft agreement, which must be approved by all 149 WTO members, calls for the end of all farm export subsidies by 2013 and the elimination of subsidies to cotton exporters next year. The 2013 deadline is a victory for the European Union, which held out against pressure by developing countries that consider rich-world agricultural subsidies unfair to farmers in poor countries, and by the United States, which had proposed ending export subsidies by 2010.