"There will be no negotiation if there is no structured discussion which aims to concrete results in agriculture," Brazil's chief trade negotiator Jose Alfredo Graca Lima said.

Brazil is one of the countries that has been most vociferous in calling for the dismantling of agricultural subsidies, especially in the European Union, in the run up to the Seattle talks intended to launch a millenium round of trade negotiations. Its stance is similar to the rest of the so-called Cairns Group of agricultural producers, Graca Lima said. World Trade Organization envoys in Geneva dropped efforts this week to formulate an agenda for the Seattle meeting, largely because of disagreements over agriculture.

Ministers will now have to hammer out the agenda for the launch of a new global trade roundin Seattle themselves. With a land mass larger than the continental United States, Brazil is Latin America's heavyweight agriculture producer and top exporter of coffee, sugar and orange juice on the planet. It boasts the world's largest commercial cattle herd and is the only major rival to top soybean producer, the United States. The opening of its economy this decade to large-scale foreign investment has given it some milage to demand the opening of rich country markets for its agricultural produce

. Speaking in Rio de Janeiro, Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes said Thursday there would be no point in staging the Seattle meeting at all if they do not include steps to eliminate agricultural subsidies. "There is no sense in a round of international negotiations that do not include amongst itspriorities market access for agricultural products and the elimination of subsidies," Pratini de Moraes said. Pointing to the European Union, Japan and South Korea, Graca Lima insisted on theelimination of subsidies on agricultural exports, saying "there is no justification for them and they do damage to competitors."