Farmers from rich and poor countries warned that attempts to open up agriculture to more competition in a global trade deal would help only a few countries at the expense of subsistence farmers world-wide.
Before a meeting next week that could make or break the World Trade Organisation free trade negotiations, farmer groups from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia said in a joint statement on Thursday that farming was not just about business.
"The special role which agriculture plays - providing food security to local populations, maintaining viable rural communities and looking after the world's precious land resources - is being totally ignored," they said.
The top trade negotiators of the European Union, the United States, Brazil and India are due to meet for five days in Germany from June 19 in a bid to narrow their differences and pave the way for a deal among the broader WTO membership.
Without a breakthrough in the coming weeks, the WTO's Doha round of global free trade negotiations, now in their sixth year, could suffer several more years of delay.
The United States and Brazil and other agriculture powers such as Australia are widely seen as being winners if there is a global deal involving cuts to import tariffs on farm products, although Washington faces calls to slash its farm subsidies.
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