Germany believes China, India and the US should be forced to adopt higher environmental and health standards if they want to export food products to the European Union, says Horst Seehofer, Germany’s farm minister.

His comments echo calls by Paris for new EU barriers to free trade in response to rising global demand for food. Michel Barnier, France’s farm minister, last month called for curbs on “free-market liberalism”, a view reflected by Mr Seehofer: “We need more market liberalisation, but under fair conditions.”

“This does not mean more protectionism. We do not want to isolate the EU but to apply EU standards in other parts of the world,” he told the Financial Times, adding that new standards should be agreed among industrialised and emerging economies in the World Trade Organisation.

Alistair Darling, UK chancellor, will on Monday fire the opening salvo in what threatens to be a major row with France and Germany over the future of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy, which he claims is exacerbating the world food crisis.

Mr Darling will urge fellow EU finance ministers to support the dismantling of the CAP, claiming it is costing consumers in Europe billions of pounds a year in higher food bills, while hurting farmers in the developing world.

Mr Seehofer dismissed such assertions as “complete rubbish”. Rather, political change and greater farming efficiency in the developing world were needed.

“The developing countries need to be able to produce more food [for themselves]. They also need political reforms, better education and less corruption. Steps are also needed against big landowners that think only of maximising profits and not feeding the local population,” he said.

Mr Seehofer signalled that Berlin might veto likely proposals from the European Commission to lift a ban on US exports to the EU of poultry products that are processed to lower standards than apply in the European bloc.

Mr Seehofer said the EU had very high standards on “the environment, on water, on health and social issues, that are also expensive for our farmers to implement. The EU should move step-by-step to ensure that third-world countries also have to meet these standards if they want to export to the EU.”

He said this idea was broadly in line with France’s proposals on a “European preference” in farm products to reflect higher EU standards. Poorer developing countries would not be affected, but the US, China, India and Latin America would, he said.