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Introductory
remarks
It
is still a long way to go to reach the goal of global food security.
The WTO has an important role to play to achieve this common
objective. The negotiations on agriculture, which are under way for
two years now, aim at substantial improvements in market access,
reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export
subsidies, and substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic
support. Bringing these negotiations to a successful conclusion is the
key contribution the WTO can make towards achieving global food
security. Further trade liberalization will have a positive impact on
food security both directly through better and secure access to food
supplies on global markets and indirectly through its contribution to
poverty alleviation.
Trade
liberalization and food security
History
has shown that food security does not equal self-sufficiency of a
country. It has more to do with international trade in food products
that makes them available at competitive prices and sets the right
incentives for those countries where they can be produced most
efficiently. Food shortages have to do with poverty rather than with
being a net food importer. Food security nowadays lies not only in the
local production of food, but in a country's ability to finance
imports of food through exports of other goods. In this sense, an open
multilateral trading system with a diversity of countries supplying
food products might be a better guarantee for stable and secure
supplies.
Trade
liberalization poverty reduction
Poverty
rather than a lack of global food production is the root cause of food
insecurity, as was recognized by the 1996 World Food Summit. The
continuation of the agricultural reform process through the ongoing
WTO negotiations on agriculture can be expected to have significant
positive effects on the purchasing power of the poor. According to
World Bank estimates, in low-income and middle-income countries
agriculture contributes an average 28 and 11 per cent, respectively,
to gross domestic product. Even more importantly, in many countries
more than half of the workforce earns their living in agriculture.
For many of these countries, including the poorest among them,
economic development and overall export performance critically depend
on how they do in agriculture.
For
this reason, reducing or eliminating trade-distorting subsidies and
improving market access opportunities, particularly on the part of
developed countries will help boost domestic production and thus
farmers' income where food can be produced most efficiently, including
in many developing countries, where problems of food security are
endemic and where production is currently suppressed due to subsidized
import competition. Developing countries cannot compete with the
fiscal profligacy of the industrialized nations which together,
according to the OECD, currently pay out $1 billion a day to their
farmers in agricultural subsidies. That is more than 6 times all
development assistance going to poor nations.
Let
me also add that the negotiations on agriculture are not just a
north-south issue. Already today, agricultural trade between
developing countries is a major element of their total trade in
agricultural products, as 40 per cent of all agricultural exports from
developing countries go to other developing countries. Also, the most
dynamic food markets over the next decades will be in the developing
world, with suppliers increasingly coming from other developing
countries. Thus, agricultural trade liberalization between developing
countries has the potential to significantly expand the trade of those
countries.
Concluding
remarks
To
conclude, food security is dependent on national production, access to
international markets and the availability of foreign exchange to buy
imports. The WTO negotiations on agriculture will contribute to all of
this. The further dismantling of trade barriers and trade-distorting
subsidies can be expected to strengthen the capacity of the global
food system to feed a growing world population. It will induce a more
efficient use of the global resources available for food production.
It will mitigate the risks of food shortages that in closed markets
exist due, for example, to the vagaries of the weather. It will
contribute to the stability of world food supply, and, most
importantly, it will help increase the incomes of the vast number of
farm households in poor countries.
Thank
you. |
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