25/9/06 (AP)  - GENEVA Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, has a secret ingredient for rescuing the suspended global trade talks - the renewable energy sources known as biofuels.
 
Turner told a public forum Monday at the World Trade Organization that biofuels - liquid fuels made from plants and trees, including biodiesel for trucks and generators and ethanol for cars and cooking - could do more than fight problems like pollution and global warming.
 
They can also solve the bitter dispute that scuttled the trade liberalization talks two months ago, he said, by providing wealthy countries a means of keeping their farmers in business, instead of subsidizing products that can be grown more cheaply in poor countries, products like cotton, sugar beets, sugar cane and rice.
 
"If agriculture were always going to be the same, then the question of subsidies would be a problem without a solution," Turner said at the WTO's headquarters here. "But agriculture is changing."
 
Turner suggested that farmers in rich countries could redirect food production to fuel production or change the crops they produce for ones that can make biofuels. Poor countries, he said, can also make biofuels to reduce their need for costly petroleum imports.
 
"This is a huge opportunity for farmers who can grow fuel," Turner said. "Demand is so great that even though Brazil produces almost a quarter of the world's sugar, it still struggles to meet its own domestic demand for ethanol."
 
The so-called Doha round of trade talks began in 2001 with the aim of spurring the world economy by lowering trade barriers, with a focus on helping developing countries by increasing their exports. The talks came to a halt in July, largely over the unwillingness of wealthy countries like the United States, members of the European Union and Japan to offer deeper cuts in subsidies paid to farmers or ease access to their agricultural markets for foreign goods.
 
Turner talked of the promising opportunities in corn, sugar beets and sugar cane that can be converted into ethanol, and palm, soy and rapeseed oil that can be made into biodiesel. These sources, he said, would provide poor countries with local jobs by substituting the fuels for oil imports.
 
 GENEVA Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, has a secret ingredient for rescuing the suspended global trade talks - the renewable energy sources known as biofuels.
 
Turner told a public forum Monday at the World Trade Organization that biofuels - liquid fuels made from plants and trees, including biodiesel for trucks and generators and ethanol for cars and cooking - could do more than fight problems like pollution and global warming.
 
They can also solve the bitter dispute that scuttled the trade liberalization talks two months ago, he said, by providing wealthy countries a means of keeping their farmers in business, instead of subsidizing products that can be grown more cheaply in poor countries, products like cotton, sugar beets, sugar cane and rice.
 
"If agriculture were always going to be the same, then the question of subsidies would be a problem without a solution," Turner said at the WTO's headquarters here. "But agriculture is changing."
 
Turner suggested that farmers in rich countries could redirect food production to fuel production or change the crops they produce for ones that can make biofuels. Poor countries, he said, can also make biofuels to reduce their need for costly petroleum imports.
 
"This is a huge opportunity for farmers who can grow fuel," Turner said. "Demand is so great that even though Brazil produces almost a quarter of the world's sugar, it still struggles to meet its own domestic demand for ethanol."
 
The so-called Doha round of trade talks began in 2001 with the aim of spurring the world economy by lowering trade barriers, with a focus on helping developing countries by increasing their exports. The talks came to a halt in July, largely over the unwillingness of wealthy countries like the United States, members of the European Union and Japan to offer deeper cuts in subsidies paid to farmers or ease access to their agricultural markets for foreign goods.
 
Turner talked of the promising opportunities in corn, sugar beets and sugar cane that can be converted into ethanol, and palm, soy and rapeseed oil that can be made into biodiesel. These sources, he said, would provide poor countries with local jobs by substituting the fuels for oil imports.