New book on WTO Negotiations on Agriculture and Developing Countries

For more than six years the trade talks of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been stalled, mainly on account of differences in countries' levels of ambition for reducing support to and protection of agriculture.

The expiration of the U.S. president's trade negotiating authority on June 30, 2007, raised the prospect of longer delay. More recently, however, the unprecedented food crisis may have created an environment for reducing the divergences in countries' negotiating positions, and efforts for agreement have intensified at Geneva.

To aid developing-country negotiators, the book WTO Negotiations on Agriculture and Developing Countries (published for IFPRI by the Johns Hopkins University Press and Oxford University Press-India) offers the first authoritative analysis of the rules and modalities on which governments of developing countries can rely and suggests a negotiating strategy for developing countries.

Reference:
Anwarul Hoda and Ashok Gulati WTO Negotiations on Agriculture and Developing Countries 320 pages / 2007 Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
IFPRI Issue Brief, June 2008. (PDF 290K)

Related:
Reuters 20/07 Trade powers tackle agric issue ahead of WTO talks

Head of the World Trade Organization calls for aid policies to be refocused to improve agriculture

Speaking to the BBC 19/04 and in the week that the world woke up to the food price crisis, Mr Lamy's, demand is radical. The Chief of the World Trade Organisation said food aid needed to be increased but, more than that, improvements in agriculture needed to be put back at the heart of development spending. He said it was complex and could not be done overnight.

The shift in emphasis is essential. As far as development assistance is concerned, agriculture has not been the main focus of the last decade and has to be the main focus of the coming times.
Mr Lamy said he believed that after seven years of negotiations, the Doha round, a new deal designed to make trade freer and fairer for the poorest countries, could be achieved.

But the immediate reaction of a number of countries to the food price shock has been in the other direction, with France wanting higher subsidies for farmers, and a number of food-exporting countries imposing restrictions on exports.

Reference:

BBC 19/04: WTO chief calls for aid rethink