CAIRNS - You know a farmer means business when he says you'll have to go without your tea break to have enough time to do the job.
The farmer was Australia's trade minister, Warren Truss, and the job in question was finding a way to strike a match under countries arguing over how to liberalise world trade.
The genial Queenslander made the call as he welcomed his Asia Pacific counterparts to the northern Australian gateway of Cairns for a two-day meeting hoping to breathe life into those dying trade talks.
Mr Truss knew he had a big job ahead of him.
In the glacial world of international trade negotiations, two days isn't a long time.
And the trade ministers and officials from the 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies needed to decide how they could inject some momentum into the flagging Doha round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The negotiations have been running for six years but members are under growing pressure to reach a deal by the end of 2007, before the start of US elections.
Trying to turn up the heat on defiant WTO members, APEC issued a sternly worded statement stressing the "urgent need to make progress".
"It's stronger than any language we've previously used," Mr Truss said.
APEC members pledged to do their part to reach agreement.
"We will demonstrate the necessary political will and flexibility, and call upon other WTO members to do the same," the APEC statement said.
But the gathering hesitated when it came to taking the next step - outlining specific targets for reducing subsidies and cutting tariffs.
"We did discuss the prospect of whether or not a meeting of this nature could actually put numbers into this statement but really that's something for a different forum," Mr Truss said.
The Cairns meeting comes at a critical juncture.
Just two weeks ago crucial discussions involving the European Union, the United States, Brazil and India, the so-called Group of Four (G4) nations, broke down after India and Brazil walked out.
The four nations were brought together as representatives of the industrialised world - the US and EU - and emerging economies - India and Brazil - to see what concession each side was willing to make.
The stumbling blocks, generally, are agriculture for the first world and manufacturing in developing nations.
After the G4's failure, the focus has turned to Geneva, where independent chairmen are drawing up draft proposals on manufacturing and agriculture which Doha supporters hope may provide a framework for a deal.
If the year-end deadline can't be met, observers expect a global deal to liberalise trade will face delays of several years - if it ever comes to pass.
The Doha round - which was hoped would free up trade to lift the developing world out of poverty - has been in dire straits before.
Eighteen months ago talks reached an impasse before key players decided to come back to the negotiating table.
The latest round of talks, which began in Qatar in 2001, are meant to build on the previous Uruguay round, which failed to strike a deal in the politically sensitive area of agriculture.
US trade representative Susan Schwab is optimistic APEC's intervention can make a difference, as it did during the Uruguay round.
"When the Uruguay round was floundering and APEC came in as an ambitious group of Asia Pacific trading nations and said 'this is too important (to let it fail)'... the conventional wisdom is that had a positive impact in propelling the Uruguay round ultimately to closure," she said.
But if negotiators don't hear what APEC is saying and Doha can't reach the finishing line this year, its ambitious trade agenda is likely to be put on the backburner for some time.
"I think there is a sense that if we don't get it done this year then Doha could well go into hibernation for several years to come," Ms Schwab said.
"Most of us believe that would not be a good outcome."
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