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Commonwealth reviews impact of WTO Agriculture Agreement on food security for developing countries

27 March 2000

The Commonwealth is promoting a report outlining how the current World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on agricultural trade may affect the food security of individuals and groups throughout the developing world. The report was written by researchers at the UK Institute of Development Studies, with the financial support of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and published by the Commonwealth Secretariat late last year, at the time of the Seattle WTO meeting .
A key conclusion of the report is that the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture has  not constrained the ability of developing countries to pursue food security policies. It argues that in the new WTO negotiations on agriculture, it should be possible to reconcile the further liberalisation of agricultural trade with the pursuit of effective food security policies in developing countries.
The report identifies five guidelines to ensure that this happens:
• If the new negotiations result in cuts in developing country agricultural import tariffs, the implementation period should allow sufficient time to introduce alternative revenue sources. Otherwise, desirable public support for agricultural development may be undermined.
• Any change to the WTO rules on allowable domestic subsidies to agriculture should recognise that some types of production-related government support to farming can be useful for promoting food security in developing countries.
• During the reform process, agricultural reforms in developed countries should focus on lowering import barriers rather than cutting high domestic prices. Otherwise, developing countries that supply those markets (such as Kenyan horticulture farmers or Namibian beef producers exporting to the EU) will face lower prices but be unable to compensate by increasing the volume of sales.
• Developing countries should protect their farmers from dumped imports, which will be widespread until liberalisation has been completed in industrial countries.
• If they are to cover all 'food insecure' states, the provisions within the WTO Agreement on Agriculture related to food security policies need to be available not just to those defined as least developed countries, but to all developing countries or else to a newly defined group of food insecure states.
The report urges developed countries to ensure in the WTO negotiations that the concerns of developing countries are registered and not squeezed out by over concentration on issues of concern to the few main agricultural trading states.

Note to Editors:
Further information on the report is available from Christopher Stevens, tel.+44 (0)1273 678790, email c.stevens@ids.ac.uk

Food security policies and international trade policy

Policy by category	Policy	Potentially affected by trade policy on:
Food production	Input credit	Domestic subsidies
(production entitlements)	Subsidised or free inputs	Domestic subsidies
	Research and extension	Tariffs (revenue)
	Capital expenditure and investment promotion	Domestic subsidies
	Land reform	—
Marketing	Market development and regulation	—
(trade entitlements)	Parastatal reform	State trading enterprises
	Food price stabilisation (buffer stocks)	Domestic subsidies (including Green Box conditions on buffer stocks/funds) Export regulation
	Food price stabilisation (buffer funds)	Tariffs, Green Box conditions on buffer stocks/funds
Labour (labour entitlements)	High-value export crops	Developed country market access Domestic subsidies
	Small- and medium-enterprise development	—
	Micro-finance	—
	Minimum wages	Process criteria
Transfers and safety nets	Labour-intensive public works programmes	Export subsidies
(transfer entitlements)	Targeted feeding programmes	Export subsidies
	Food stamps	Export subsidies
	Food price subsidies	Domestic subsidies

 

Potential issues for the review of WTO Agreement on Agriculture

Changes that could affect food security		Potential alternative instruments
Policy area	Types of change
Domestic subsidies	Erosion of SDT provisions on investment and input subsidies Cut in de minimis provisions	Recalculation of Aggregate Measurement of Support (AMS) Redesign of Green Box (specified subsidies exempt from restrictions)
Tariffs	Removal of 'water' from tariffs before end of developed country subsidised production	Provision of Special Safeguards Countervailing duties
Export subsidies	Reduction of subsidised imports available to vulnerable countries and groups that is more rapid than feasible adjustment	Targeting of concessional food (possibly outside WTO framework)

 

 

00/18 27 March, 2000

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