Trade Policy Note Final-rev08 - Development

Liberalization and Food Security
A key coalition of developing countries, the G33 48 are seeking to make any further
liberalization in agricultural trade conditional upon the preservation of their policy
space to intervene to protect livelihoods, and ensure food security. This approach has
been manifested in the Special Products 49 and Special Safeguards proposals currently
before the WTO. While it is recognized that such measure could increase import
prices of foodstuffs for urban consumers , on balance rural producers are the poorest
members of society in developing countries, far poorer than those segments of the
population who purchase imported food. 50
Box 17: Identifying Special Products
Criteria: The Special Products (SP) proposal aims at ensuring that future commitments on
market access for agriculture will permit a special degree of flexibility for products central to
the objectives of (a) food security (all people have physical and economic access to sufficient
safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life), (b)
livelihood security (adequate and sustainable access to resources or assets by household and
individuals to realize a minimum standard of living, recognizing that poor farmers have very
low risk thresholds) and (c) rural development (the potential of an agricultural product to
improve the living standards of the rural population including both directly and through its
forward linkages to non-farm rural activities). 51
The question of the criteria to be used in determining which products are “spec ial” is the
subject of current debate in the WTO and is also relevant to developing countries in their
national agricultural trade policies. Basic indicators that should be examined include:
- Food security: the share of consumption of the product in total agricultural consumption,
and the share of its domestic production in domestic consumption. These could be used as
indicators of the importance of the product for food security. A certain percentage of
domestic consumption of the basic food basket should be met by domestic production,
since dependence on imports create high vulnerability for products for which world trade
volume is relatively small compared to world demand;
- Livelihood security: the share of employment as a result of production of the product in
the total agricultural labour force; if the majority of farmers producing a particular
product are low income, and resource poor, any disruption caused by imports can cause
deprivation and even starvation;
- Rural development: the share of production of the product in total agricultural
production. This could serve as an indicator of the contribution of the product to rural
development. 52
48 G33 members are: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, China, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire,
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya,
Korea, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru,
Philippines, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Suriname,
Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
49 According to the terminology used in the WTO, “sensitive” products are those for which developed
countries are seeking less than formula liberalization.
50 See Stiglitz and Charlton op. cit p. 230
51 See Proposal of G33 on the modalities for the design ation and treatment of any agricultural product
as a Special Product (SP) by any developing country member, JOB(05)304, 22 November 2005
http://www.agtradepolicy.org/output/resource/G33_proposal_SPs_22Nov05.pdf.
52 FAO Support to the WTO Negotiations (2003), www.fao.org.docrep/005.
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