The average EU farmer receives 100 times more in agricultural support than the average annual earnings of an African peasant farmer and yet under European Commission trade proposals the two would be direct competitors.

This is according to a Cafod policy paper which says that the leadership and personal commitment of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to make Africa a focus of international attention in 2005 risks being "seriously undermined" by the inequitable bilateral free trade agreements currently being negotiated between the Europe Union and African countries. The European Union is asking African countries to liberalise 90% of their markets over 10 years. At the same time the EU is refusing to discuss its own highly protectionist Common Agricultural Policy.

"These agreements are pushing for levels and speeds of market opening that will seriously hurt the already pitifully fragile economies of sub-Saharan Africa. They also add to the burdens placed on sub-Saharan Africa’s economy by pitching heavily subsidised European agricultural products against those of the African farmer, already struggling for survival."

Cafod is calling on the UK government to lobby the EU to drop all offensive interests in trade negotiations and provide alternative non-reciprocal trade relationships that are not free trade areas.