Mumbai, May 26 - TO make global agricultural trade truly liberal so that it delivers benefit to the world's poor, the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has mooted a five-step proposal that envisages action by both developed and developing countries.
Reduction of farm sector support (subsidies) and border protection (tariffs) by developed countries, opening up of markets by developing countries, a substantive (and not symbolic) agreement on agriculture in the Doha Round, use of safety and quality regulations as non-protectionist instruments, and development assistance by wealthy nations to complement trade agreement, are the salient measures to reform agricultural trade.
Unveiling the proposal at the WTO public symposium on 'Multilateralism at the Crossroads' in Geneva, Mr Joachim von Braun, Director General of IFPRI, said proliferating bilateral trade agreements marginalised developing countries.
"As per capita income rises and internal markets become increasingly efficient, a country should reduce its agricultural trade barriers and subsidies," he said.
He added that trade facilitating aid (for example, roads and other market infrastructure) should be highest for the least developed countries and should shrink with rising incomes and improved market functioning.
Referring to the imperative of raising tariffs to protect domestic production from the onslaught of subsidised imports, Mr von Braun pointed out how changes in the agricultural trade policies of India since the Uruguay Round illustrated the subsidies/tariffs connection.
"The political economy of farm policy in India is similar to that in the United States, but the instruments of policy differ.
When the US began making new direct (emergency) payments to farmers in the late 1990s period of low prices, India, with fewer fiscal resources to marshal for farm support, resorted to high tariffs and freight subsidies to protect its own farmers and compete with the subsidised exports from OECD countries," Mr Von Braun pointed out.Business Line:
