Agriculture Meeting Discusses MC12 Outcomes,
Food Security, Nairobi and Bali Decisions
Food security remained high on the agenda at the meeting of the
WTO’s Committee on Agriculture on 27-28 June. Welcoming the outcomes on food and
agriculture achieved at the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), members discussed
how to follow up on ministers’ declarations concerning food security. Members also
continued reviewing various farm policies and considered issues related to the implementation
of the Bali and Nairobi ministerial decisions. The new chair, Mr Marcel Vernooij of the Netherlands,
facilitated the discussion.
Under
the item on “COVID-19 and agriculture”, which has been on the committee agenda since
September 2020, members discussed wider aspects of food security challenges, including
the war in Ukraine, climate change, extreme weather, and the general economic slowdown,
as well as their impact on agricultural trade. Members received updates from the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, G/AG/GEN/202), and the Inter-American Institute
for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA, G/AG/GEN/201).
A number
of members said they were alarmed by the facts in FAO's analysis and shared concerns
regarding the severe food and nutrition insecurity exacerbated by the prolonged
COVID-19 pandemic and the tension in the Black Sea area. They acknowledged that
net food-importing developing countries (NFIDCs) and least developed countries (LDCs)
are among the hardest hit and are expected to pay billions of dollars more for lower
volumes of food imports. They also noted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has
reduced its projected global economic growth rate to 3.6% for 2022 and 2023, which
will compound the difficulties experienced by those countries.
Some
members highlighted the critical role of trade in ensuring food security and the
need to build up the long-term resilience of agriculture markets, including avoiding
unjustified export restrictions and improving transparency. Some developing members
also emphasized the importance of unlocking local production capacity in developing
countries as a means of contributing to long-term food security. They encouraged members to consider what tangible
steps can be taken to achieve this goal.
Trade
ministers at MC12 vowed to collectively address the global food security challenges
in the Ministerial Declaration on the Emergency Response to Food Insecurity (WT/MIN(22)/28) as well in the Ministerial
Declaration on the WTO Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Preparedness for Future
Pandemics (WT/MIN(22)/31).
The first
declaration also provides for the establishment of a dedicated work programme on NFIDCs and LDCs to address their specific concerns
on food security under the auspices of the Committee on Agriculture.
Members
held preliminary discussions on how to develop the work programme.
While the specific issues to be considered under the programme
would be based on members' suggestions and contributions, this first discussion
in the committee also demonstrated that members would need additional time and further
discussions on the format and the scope of the work programme.
The second
declaration affirms the need to review and build on all the lessons learned and
the challenges experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as discussed within WTO
bodies, in order to build effective solutions on food security in case of future
pandemics.
The chair
asked members to explore whether the title of the standing agenda item on “COVID-19
and agriculture” should be altered since the agricultural challenges posed by COVID-19
have recently been compounded by the latest food security challenges. A declining
number of reported COVID-19 related agricultural measures by members might be an
indication that they are now hesitant to attribute a measure solely to the pandemic. Some members agreed to adjust the topic to cover
current challenges to food security while others were concerned that this may go
too far by discussing issues beyond the mandate of the committee. The chair decided
to keep the current agenda item as it is until a decision is made by members.
At the
meeting, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) thanked WTO
members for approving a decision to exempt the WFP’s humanitarian food purchases
from export restrictions at MC12. The WFP said its Executive Director, David Beasley,
noted the historic decision was taken “when the global food security is facing unprecedented
challenges” and that the decision “will ensure that critical relief reaches the
most vulnerable populations when and where needed”.
Seven
new issues were addressed as part of discussions on members' farm policies in relation
to the three pillars of agricultural trade: market access, domestic support and
export competition. In the spotlight were China's agricultural inputs subsidies,
Egypt's import requirement, Italy's local content policies, India's domestic support
for rice, India's export restrictions on wheat, Malaysia's chicken export prohibition
and the United States' crop production support.
For 12
recurring issues, members continued to seek details on matters such as Canada's
dairy policies, EU environmental and deforestation policies, India's public stockpiling
policies, Indonesia's palm oil export restrictions and the US conservation reserve
program.
Members
also seized the opportunity to seek details on some individual notifications pertaining
to tariff quota administration, special agricultural safeguards, domestic support,
and export subsidy notifications. Most attention was focused on domestic support,
with 11 members being questioned on their domestic support notifications to the
WTO.
Several
members said they have initiated an official request for consultations with India
seeking more detailed information regarding its public stockholding programmes, pursuant to paragraph 6 of the Bali
decision on public stockholding programme for food security
purposes. India said the consultation dates have not been finalized.
The chair asked the participants in the consultations to keep the committee informed
of progress.
All questions
submitted for the meeting are compiled in document G/AG/W/221. All questions and
replies received are available on the WTO's Agriculture Information Management System (AG IMS).
Highlighting
the context of the annual dedicated discussion on export competition, the chair
noted that the committee has concluded the second triennial review of the Nairobi Export Competition
Decision and adopted a review report (G/AG/33) . He also
recalled that 2021 was the first year when all members were required to reply to
the export competition questionnaire (ECQ) — a key element of the dedicated discussion
exercise — as the grace period for developing countries to respond to the questionnaire
had expired. The decision on export competition commits WTO members to eliminate
farm subsidies contingent on export.
The chair
said 36 replies to the questionnaire were received by the time the meeting began,
which constitutes the best rate for responses since the questionnaire was first
circulated in 2014. All replies are compiled in document G/AG/W/125/Rev.16 and its four addenda
circulated on 30 May. The 36 participating members represent about 70% of total
world exports, a sharp decrease compared to last year due to missing questionnaires
from some major exporters. He urged members
to abide by their transparency commitments and provide a reply by 15 July.
Several
members answered questions at the meeting regarding their policies on export competition.
These questions may be consulted in G/AG/W/221. All questions and replies received
are available in the WTO's Agriculture Information Management System (AG IMS).
With
regard to members' compliance with incorporating the elimination of export subsidies
into their WTO schedules of commitments, the situation has not changed since the
last meeting: among the 16 members with export subsidy reduction commitments, 13
have seen their revised schedules certified (i.e. accepted by all WTO members) while
two members — Canada and the European Union — await certification of their draft
schedules circulated in 2017. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has not yet circulated
its revised export subsidy schedule.
Following
the agreement reached at the Committee on Agriculture in March 2022, the General
Council has subsequently adopted the decision on the future operation of the
underfill mechanism established under the Bali tariff rate quota
(TRQ) Decision and reached closure on this outstanding issue.
After the conclusion of the long debate on this outstanding element related to the
underfill mechanism, members at this June meeting commenced
discussions on a Secretariat Tracking Register required under the decision to record
and track underfill matters raised under the mechanism.
They also started to discuss the first triennial review of the operation of the
decision, focusing primarily on how transparency of tariff quota administration
arrangements could be further improved.
The chair
reiterated two elements critical to enhanced transparency in the committee: (i) the timeliness and completeness of notifications submitted
by members; and (ii) the importance of timely and complete responses to questions
raised in the review process.
The chair
encouraged members to redouble efforts to improve their compliance with notification
obligations. G/AG/GEN/86/Rev.45 and G/AG/W/204/Rev.6 reflect, respectively,
the current status of members' compliance with notification obligations and the
list of outstanding responses to questions raised by members at the committee between
2013 and 2021. Members were also informed about progress in the Secretariat's ongoing
IT project on the ECQ to facilitate members' online replies to the questionnaire.
Some members also proposed that the Secretariat should develop a database on domestic
support to facilitate their access to the notified support data. Other members sought
additional time to examine the proposal for the suggested database.
The Secretariat
announced its plan to organize the second phase of the 2021-22 advanced notification
workshop in September in the margins of the next Agriculture Committee meeting.
The workshop will focus on how to prepare agriculture notifications as well as the
review process of the committee. The first phase of the
training workshop was conducted virtually in October 2021.