Agriculture
Negotiators Intensify Talks on Draft Text
Trade negotiators meeting on 20-21 September
2021 shared specific ideas around the draft agriculture negotiating text
circulated on 29 July so as to enhance prospects for a consensus outcome at the
WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in late November. Many supported a
switch to text-based discussions, stressing the urgent need to make progress in
the short time remaining.
“The coming weeks are critical for our process,” said the Chair of
the WTO agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Gloria Abraham Peralta (Costa
Rica), as she wrapped up the two days of talks.
The Chair posed questions to guide the discussions on domestic
support, public stockholding programmes for food
security purposes, and the proposed “special safeguard mechanism” that would
enable developing countries to raise tariffs temporarily in the event of an
import surge or price depression. Members also reviewed two new negotiating
submissions, one on domestic support and the other on cotton and continued
discussions on the other topics.
In response to the questions from the Chair, more than 30 WTO
members took the floor to share their views on the appropriate level of
ambition on domestic support for the Ministerial Conference, and on how best to
arrive at a consensus on the negotiating text.
Several developed and developing members supported the draft
negotiating text, which they saw as a good starting point for the negotiations.
In their view, it was unlikely for members to conclude a comprehensive
blueprint for reducing domestic support at the upcoming conference given the
short time remaining. Members should instead seek to agree on a work programme that would clearly define the main parameters for
the subsequent negotiations, including the timeline, scope and principles for
reduction commitments in order to achieve the goal of halving the global
domestic support entitlements by 2030. These members emphasized that all
types of domestic support under Article 6 of the Agreement on Agriculture
should be included for discussion, but not necessarily treated in the same
manner, and that members should make reductions that are proportionate to their
contributions to the problem of trade distortion.
Some members emphasized the need to aim for what is achievable by
MC12. They highlighted the importance of improving transparency and encouraged
the Chair to include more transparency-related provisions in the draft text.
Some members stressed the importance of reaching a balanced package across the
board at the Ministerial Conference. One of these members emphasised
that an outcome on market access would be key to this end. Some members also
stressed that a result on domestic support should not prejudge the final
outcome.
Meanwhile, several members expressed their concern that the draft
negotiating text did not take due account of a recent submission by the African
Group, which sought to eliminate trade-distorting support exceeding the “de minimis” threshold, which is expressed as
a share of the value of production. They restated their view that reducing this
type of support is their top priority and a necessary first step towards
levelling the playing field.
The Chair said the intense discussions on this topic showed it
lies at the very heart of the negotiations on agriculture. With fewer
than 10 weeks left before the Ministerial Conference, members needed to
intensify their engagement further, and move to text-based negotiations as soon
as possible, she said. She also encouraged members to table new proposals that
would help to bridge the gaps between them and pave the way for a meaningful
result at the conference.
India presented a new negotiating submission, which called for the
elimination of trade-distorting support that exceeds members’ agreed “de minimis” thresholds. Citing data, India’s
new submission argued that support which exceeds de minimis levels offers additional
flexibilities to a sub-set of WTO members, and enables them to concentrate
domestic support on certain products.
Several developing members supported India and encouraged the
Chair to incorporate the proposal into the draft negotiating text. Some also
commended India´s efforts in analysing data and
improving transparency. However, some other members, developed and developing,
were of the view that the proposal brought no new ideas to the negotiations and
questioned the accuracy of some of the data cited in the document. They asked
India to not lose sight of the high levels of support provided by all major
subsidizers and the resulting harmful effects on global trade. In their view,
India’s proposals were unlikely to gain traction as they only required a
sub-set of subsidising members to make reductions.
The Cotton-4 Group of West African cotton-producing countries
(Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali) introduced a draft decision that seeks, in
particular, cuts in members’ trade-distorting support for cotton and the
elimination of “green box” direct payments to cotton producers. While several
developing country members supported the proposal, some other members questioned
it, noting that it was very close to a previous submission circulated in 2019
that failed to garner support.
Some other members made the case that support under the “green box” and “blue box”
categories ought to be considered separately in view of their characteristics,
including the fact that they caused at most
minimal or less trade-distorting effects.
Several members declared themselves ready to engage with the C-4
on what could constitute a possible outcome on cotton at MC12. For one member,
in view of the short time left and building upon the work undertaken in the
last months, an outcome on cotton at MC12 should focus on progress on
transparency, paving the way for a more ambitious outcome at MC13.
In a discussion on other topics, several members reiterated the
importance of market access, with some of them indicating on-going work on new
textual proposals on the continuation of work post MC12.
Members’ interventions on public stockholding and the following
discussion on the special safeguard mechanism again sought to respond to
guiding questions from the Chair on how changes to the draft negotiating text
could help build consensus.
Some members asked the Chair to incorporate into the draft
negotiating text two recent proposals made by the African Group and the G33
Group (a group of developing and least-developed countries). They said the
current two options presented in the draft negotiating text did not reflect the
views of those developing members who want a permanent solution to the problems
they face when buying food under these programmes at
government-set prices. In their view, any such solution should not impose
unduly burdensome transparency obligations on developing members and should
cover all agriculture products. Some members suggested that the two groups
should consult with each other to consolidate their proposals, given their
shared objectives.
Meanwhile, other WTO members queried whether the negotiations
would realistically be able to deliver a permanent solution on this question by
the upcoming Ministerial Conference. In their view, many questions still remain
unanswered, and better and more current data was needed so that all members
could understand better how current public stockholding programmes
functioned. They emphasised the connections they saw
between this issue and the overall domestic support negotiations. Some members
underscored the view that any permanent solution ought not to deprive WTO
members of their rights to resolve any disagreements that may emerge through
the WTO’s dispute settlement process. Some expressed the view that WTO members
might be able to agree on parameters and principles that would guide talks in
this area following the upcoming Ministerial Conference.
Noting the importance of the issue to many members, the Chair
encouraged them to intensify their work so as to achieve an outcome by the date
of the Ministerial Conference. She remained confident that an outcome is still
possible despite the divisions. Only more flexibilities and good will will help members get there, she said.
The proponents restated their view that a special safeguard
mechanism should be established so that developing members could counter the
negative impact of import surges and price drops. Some of them highlighted the
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural markets in their interventions.
Some members asked the Chair to incorporate the African Group´s
recent submission into the draft negotiating text. Some developing members also
suggested that members could consider adopting an interim solution on this
topic at the upcoming Ministerial Conference. They argued that this would allow
developing members to apply the proposed new safeguard for a number of years to
test its effectiveness before members moved to negotiate a permanent mechanism.
This would help generate evidence of how such a safeguard would work in
practice, thereby responding to other countries’ concerns on this topic, the
proponents said.
However, other countries said they did not see the special
safeguard mechanism as a priority issue for the Ministerial Conference. They emphasised that, in their view, the special safeguard
mechanism must be addressed in parallel with new market access commitments.
The Chair welcomed the ideas introduced in the exchanges and noted
the linkage which a number of members had established between progress on the
special safeguard mechanism and the issue of agricultural market access. She
also emphasised the need for more technical
discussion to take place on this question.
The Chair encouraged members to intensify their engagement with
one another on possible textual compromises that would help them to reach
consensus. She told the meeting that, in parallel, she will continue
consultations with members in various formats, in particular holding
topic-by-topic consultations with representative groups of members in an
informal setting (the so-called “Room D” format), starting from 4 October.
The Chair told participants that the Committee on Agriculture in
Special Session will hold its next meeting open to all members on 14 October.
Noting that only six weeks would then remain before the Ministerial Conference,
she emphasised that members will need to have a much
clearer idea by then of potential “landing zones” if they want to be able to
prepare a revised text for ministers to consider.