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“Trade agreements, harmonised stds should be priority,” says FAO chief
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Thursday, 26 October, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Rome
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Global trade agreements, harmonised food safety standards and measures that benefit, rather than harm, poor family farmers in the developing world should be key objectives in the ongoing international trade negotiations. This was stated by José Graziano da Silva, director general, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), at an event organised under the aegis of the Committee on Commodity Problems (CCP).
The inter-sessional event’s focus was on how to leverage the contributions of trade to the food security and nutrition goals of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, ahead of the 11th World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference, slated to take place in Buenos Aires in December 2017. Promoting a universal rule-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under WTO is a specific objective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 17.
“We should aim to produce an outcome that will be a step closer towards an inclusive, balanced and equitable global trading system,” he added, stating that the top priority was to prioritise global agreements over the bilateral and regional trade instruments that have proliferated in recent years.
“While family farmers produce 80 per cent of the world's food, many also suffer from hunger and rely on both import and export possibilities for food security and as a path out of poverty,” Graziano da Silva noted, adding that it is imperative that policies and rules avoid trade-distorting effects that harm them.
The CCP, FAO’s oldest technical committee, comprises over 100 members who meet every two years. It offers an inter-governmental forum for the members to debate important issues related to commodity markets and policy developments.
Top officials from across the globe will gather in the Argentine capital for the WTO Ministerial Conference. While subjects such as e-commerce are expected to be high on the agenda, rapidly expanding international food trade remains a critical issue and gained substantial momentum after the agreement at the last Conference - in Nairobi in 2015 - to eliminate agricultural export subsidies.
“The Nairobi agreement on eliminating agricultural export subsidies was the most significant reform of global rules on agriculture trade for 20 years and will help level the playing field to the benefit of farmers and exporters in developing and least-developed countries,” Roberto Azevêdo, director general, WTO, told the CCP delegates.
Next round
“The 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires is a very important milestone to ensure agricultural trade supports growth and development,” Azevêdo added.
Issues on the table include public stockholding for food security purposes, domestic support generally, and for cotton in particular, transparency in export restrictions, market access and fishery subsidies,” he added.
FAO and WTO have deepened their partnership with joint efforts such as a joint publication, explaining how developing countries can participate more effectively in the harmonised food standard setting processes in Codex Alimentarius and the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committees.
Azevêdo said that he and Graziano da Silva have been trying to encourage a more substantive and inclusive debate on trade and agriculture.
Acknowledging that there was no easy or obvious solution on any of the fronts atop the agenda in Buenos Aires, he urged participants to identify clear ways forward for unresolved issues.
FAO’s aim, articulated in a policy brief released at the CCP event, is to acknowledge that policy settings should be coherent with a nation’s development phase, and above all, to make sure that the expansion of agricultural trade works for the elimination of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in the world.
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