Agriculture and World Trade Liberalisation

During the past few decades agriculture has followed the general pattern of rapid integration of the world economy, with global trade in agriculture rising far faster than world agricultural production. Over this period the structure of world agricultural trade has changed, with the share of developed countries in global agricultural exports increasing, while that of developing countries has declined. In contrast the percentage of developing countries in world imports of agricultural products rose over the past four decades. The aim here is discuss the issue of winners and losers from agricultural trade liberalisation. This will first entail presenting key statistics indicating the main developments in world agricultural production and trade. Then follows a brief description of the agriculture in the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, indicating the positions of the main actors (including the various groupings of developing countries) as this illustrates the perceived vulnerabilities and opportunities arising from agricultural trade liberalisation. A third and final part of the article will provide a survey of the main estimates of the impact of agricultural trade liberalisation, and will tackle the issue of those sectors and households that might be adversely affected by the process. In particular, the chapter will attempt to illustrate how the possible negative consequences of the failure of the Doha Development Agenda could be overcome.