BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Next, farm subsidies in rich countries and their impact on Third World farmers. In the years since the Cold War, the U.S. has pressed hard to open markets and tear down tariffs and barriers to free trade. The one big exception has been agriculture. The U.S., European Union, and Japan continue to protect their farmers, with subsidies of almost one billion dollars per day. Developing countries say this shuts them out of the market. A case in point: cotton subsidies, which will be discussed in Cancun, Mexico this coming week at a World Trade Organization meeting. We have a report from Fred de Sam Lazaro.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The day of cotton's dominance may be long past in the American South. But the 25,000 or so U.S. cotton producers remain solidly profitable, even though world cotton prices are at historic lows. That's because federal subsidies guarantee them a minimum price. In other words, a grower like John Lindamood, who plants 5,000 acres in Tennessee, can sell cotton for below his cost of producing it.

JOHN LINDAMOOD: In years of historically low prices, which is where we are currently, have been for the last couple years, we're producing for prices that my father received when I was in grade school. These government supports are essential to us staying in business.

DE SAM LAZARO: But many critics, notably leaders of a group of West African nations, say those government supports (subsidies) have depressed world cotton prices -- and devastated African farmers and economies, which depend heavily, if not entirely on cotton exports.

One of the countries bringing a complaint against U.S. subsidies at the World Trade Organization is Mali. Landlocked, with a per capita income of just $277 a year, it is one of the world's 10 poorest nations. Most of its 12 million citizens live near the Niger River. And most, like Hamidou Coulibaly, are subsistence farmers. They grow corn and millet, mainly for their own needs -- and cotton for income.

HAMIDOU COULIBALY (Farmer): We are growing cotton, but we have some difficulties. Our difficulties are that our cotton doesn't get a good price. Also, that fertilizers and insecticides are expensive.

DE SAM LAZARO: Last year, after covering all costs and expenses, Coulibaly's seven-acre cotton crop brought in just $500.

Mr. H. COULIBALY: What I get is not enough. We have to pay taxes and I have to pay for clothes and medicine. I have children who go to school, I have to pay for their clothes and school supplies.

DE SAM LAZARO: Coulibaly had to resort to borrowing money to support his extended family of 40 members. Many neighbors are even worse off. Kalifa Fako Coulibaly, who's not related, has had to sell some of his cattle used to plow his fields; on this day, he borrowed the equivalent of $30 to buy medicine. That's more than 10 percent of his earnings last year.

KALIFA FAKO COULIBALY (Farmer): I just borrowed 15,000 CFAs. They will take it out of my cotton income. All of my family has been sick and I took this money to pay for medicine.

DE SAM LAZARO: Mali's president has won praise and aid from Washington for promoting democratic and free market policies. He says Washington itself violates principles of free markets in subsidizing American farmers.

President AMADOU TOURMANI TOURE (President of Mali): We studied the impact of these subsidies and found that if there were not subsidies, we would increase the income of our producers by more than 30 percent. The losses we're sustaining are more than the aid we receive from the United States. And we find this unjust. Because the population who produce cotton are powerless rural people.