A report last month by the International Food Policy Research Institute estimated that farmers in developing countries lose about £16 billion a year in income through protectionism and subsidies from developed nations.

As trade ministers from the World Trade Organisation's member nations meet in Cancún to discuss future trade policy, the report quantifies the economic impact on developing countries of current practice. But away from the talks and economists' calculators, how is that cost measured in human terms?

Jos Algra works for the Fairtrade company, Twin Trading. From his base in Vera Cruz, Mexico, he travels to farmers in Mexico and Nicaragua, giving seminars on methods to improve the farmers' businesses - about the opportunities that exist in producing organic, Fairtrade or gourmet coffee, for example - or training in accounts and management.

"What impresses you about these people is their spirit; how hard working they are," says Mr Algra. "They are determined to make an impact with the little resources they have to hand. But the situation is very bad.

"People are malnourished - and are looking how they can diversify, but it is very difficult. For the most part these people are fighting a losing battle."

US sugar subsidies have jeopardised the livelihoods of thousands of South America farmers who relied on the revenue from sugar cane to subsidise that earned from coffee crops.

In Vera Cruz, coffee production is often coupled with the farming of sugar cane. Pressure, in the shape of massive subsidies given by the US Government to American sugar farmers, is killing the industry. No matter how impressive their spirit, people in this situation find they have no alternative but to move on.

"First, the men leave off season," explains Mr Algra. "And then, during the season, they realise that it is not worth going back. Maybe they return for their families. More often, once people leave, they are gone forever."

Farmers leave their own smallholdings to harvest other farmers' tomatoes in north Mexico or oranges in the US, or they leave to pick up whatever work is available in American factories or the slums of Mexico City.

"The average age in some co-operatives is 45-55 years old," says Mr Algra. "What is obvious when I visit them is that there is no 'next generation' - only old people, women and young children. Take the village of Guerroro; there used to be 700 people there - now only 30 are left."

The European Union uses half of its budget on agricultural subsidies that were condemned by a Government economic affairs committee earlier this year as "hypocritical" and responsible for "shameful" global poverty.

Oxfam goes as far as to claim world trade could end world poverty.

The state of the Mozambique sugar industry illustrates the point. A country desperate to trade finds itself faced pitted against £1 billion of subsidies for European sugar producers. Despite being the world's most inefficient producer of sugar, Europe is the world's largest exporter.

"It would be as if some football team in the Premier League really had improved its position and then Manchester United changed the rules and said you have got to score three goals to count one," says Lord Peston, a member of the economic affairs committee.

"What we are hoping for from Cancún is a fairer set of rules," says Sylvie Barr, strategic development manager of Cafedirect, one of the UK's leading Fairtrade companies. "The present system is failing these vulnerable farmers dramatically,"

In the meantime, Fairtrade bodies say price controls are necessary to level the playing field. The Fairtrade Foundation guarantees consumers who buy accredited products that farmers are paid a fair price for the goods and commodities they produce.

"Fairtrade gives people security," says Mr Algra. "It gives them an opportunity to invest in their future. Until the world's governments come together to hammer out a solution, it gives farmers a means to hang in there."

Related Times Online coverage:
What price a fair deal?