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The Cairns Croup is an interest group of 17 agricultural exporting countries: Argentina, Australia , Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay.
The Cairns Group's objective is to bring about world-wide free trade in agricultural products by multilateral negotiations, in particular under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. In particular, they aim to abolish export subsidies and trade-distorting ("amber box") domestic support measures for agricultural products and seek to improve market access for exported agricultural goods.
In the ongoing Doha Round trade negotiations, they are mainly opposed by WTO Members seeking to uphold their high level of agricultural protection on grounds of public policy, such as the EU, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Norway (dubbed the "multifunctionalists").
Reference: Cairns Group website (http://www.cairnsgroup.org/introduction.html)
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