The Director-General asked members to build on the positive progress made at the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) last June and take the negotiations to the “next step” in addressing the food security issue holistically. “We don't have much time. I'm not expecting a grand package,” she said.

She told participants that she believes they can find a “sensible and pragmatic” approach to food security by MC13, which is due to be held in Abu Dhabi in February 2024.

In addition to the negotiations, the “Agriculture Week” of meetings from 27 to 31 March also included three thematic seminars on food security, public food stockholding, and agricultural domestic support. The seminars featured presentations and analyses from several international organizations, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Grains Council. WTO members also shared their national experiences.

Public stockholding: “Illuminating” discussions

The Director-General welcomed the “illuminating” discussions at the seminars, in particular on public stockholding, encouraging members to move past reiterating old positions and instead focus on bridging gaps in the positions of proponents and non-proponents.

Since the Bali Ministerial Conference a decade ago, WTO members have been pursuing a “permanent solution” to the problems some developing countries face when buying food at government-set prices as part of their public stockholding programmes for food security purposes. While stock purchases at market prices are allowed without limits under WTO rules, procurement at “administered” prices needs to be counted towards WTO members’ overall ceiling on support. A number of developing countries contend that food price inflation since this ceiling was agreed affects their ability to buy food at minimum prices under these programmes.

The chair of the agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy of Türkiye, noted that the seminar on public stockholding had injected fresh impetus into the negotiations. During the seminar, members heard from one another about the different objectives and practices of countries implementing these programmes, the role of stocks in price stabilization and food security, and their potential impacts on markets and food security in other countries.

The African Group, the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group, and the G33 Group (a group of developing members) re-tabled their joint submission on food stockholding for discussion.

The chair also convened a dedicated discussion on the “special safeguard mechanism” — a proposed policy tool that would enable developing country members to increase tariffs temporarily in the event of a sudden import surge or falling prices. As exporting members continue to link progress on this issue with talks on improving access to agricultural markets, the chair asked members to deliberate on how they can make progress on this issue.

Breaking the stalemate

During the dedicated session on public stockholding and the subsequent meeting of the agriculture negotiating body, members discussed the key takeaways from the three thematic seminars held on 29-30 March. Members welcomed what they said had been informative presentations and rich exchanges at the seminars and suggested that similar events be held on other topics under negotiation to foster constructive dialogue.

Members also reviewed two new submissions: a paper from Canada on the trends in agricultural domestic support and another from the United States on the WTO's role in enhancing food security (JOB/AG/241).

In addition, members exchanged views on how to overcome the current stalemate in the negotiations and reform agriculture trading rules to ensure a fair and market-oriented system while promoting food security.

Members discussed the importance of building trust and finding common ground, the urgency of agreeing on a food security package by MC13, and how best to balance short-term and long-term food security needs and agricultural reform goals.

Other topics discussed were the role of open trade in ensuring food security, the need to enhance domestic production and productivity, including through innovation and technology transfer, and the flexibilities required by developing members, especially least developed countries and net food-importing developing countries.

Members also discussed the need to maintain balance among all the negotiation topics. The Cotton-4 group (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire) requested that the chair re-launch the “quad plus track,” a negotiation forum involving Cotton-4 and other major cotton traders, such as the United States, the European Union, China, Brazil and Pakistan.

The WTO's agriculture negotiations encompass various topics, including domestic support, market access, export competition (covering  export subsidies and measures seen as comparable), export prohibition and restrictions, cotton, public stockholding for food security purposes, the special safeguard mechanism, and the cross-cutting issue of transparency.

At MC12, despite making progress on certain issues relating to food security, members were unable to arrive at an agreement on the agriculture reform workplan.

Next steps

The chair expressed his satisfaction with the discussions, which he characterised as “very encouraging”, while also acknowledging that more work remains to be done to bridge the remaining gaps between WTO members’ negotiating positions. He emphasized the urgent need to ensure that WTO talks contribute to improving food security and encouraged members to focus on identifying possible landing zones for agreement at MC13.

Responding to members' requests, the chair announced that one more series of seminars will be organized in the first week of May, possibly on the topics of food export restrictions and access to agricultural markets, with negotiating meetings following immediately afterwards.

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