In the mid-1980s a group of 14 'fair trading' agricultural exporting nations came together to form the Cairns Group. Representing both developed and developing countries, they were all trying to trade in the toughest game in town - agriculture.

They were fed up with high levels of protection in farming and a global system that had made agriculture the most distorted sector of world trade. They were also frustrated with lack of progress on agricultural trade liberalisation in the GATT.

The Cairns Group, which now has 18 members, effectively put agriculture on the multilateral trade agenda and kept it there. The Group is an example of international coalition building which aims to achieve reform in a key sector of world trade.

The Cairns Group itself operates through Ministers and officials at a government to government level. Farmer organisations in the individual countries are closely consulted by their governments to frame Cairns Group policies and positions. As agricultural trade is still highly distorted, and because negotiations are about to resume in the WTO, farmers in the 15 member countries have decided to become more closely involved.

There is a lot at stake for farmer organisations and the livelihoods of the family farms they represent. Leaders of farmer organisations in the Cairns Group countries came together in Sydney in 1998 to plan their campaign for substantial progress on reducing agricultural protectionism in the WTO in 1999.

The organisations represented in Sydney were: