WTO Agriculture Talks: Prospects for progress on SDG 2

The policy brief examines the restart of WTO agriculture negotiations under Chair Gloria Abraham Peralta, identifying seven key negotiating areas and the political obstacles hindering progress. It highlights the impact of COVID-19 on food export restrictions and the ongoing tension between developed and developing nations over farm subsidies and market access. The author suggests a phased approach to negotiations, identifying 'low-hanging fruit' such as humanitarian food aid exemptions and transparency improvements, while proposing compromise frameworks for domestic support and public stockholding to foster more equitable global food markets.

• WTO agriculture negotiations restarted in September 2020 under Chair Gloria Abraham Peralta, focusing on seven negotiating areas: domestic support to agriculture, market access, export competition, trade in cotton, food export restrictions, public food stockholding, and a new 'special safeguard mechanism'.
• The United States, European Union, China, and India are the dominant providers of agricultural support, collectively accounting for approximately 75% of all support classified as trade-distorting under current WTO rules.
• The G33 coalition, led by India and including China, Indonesia, and the Philippines, is seeking a 'permanent solution' to allow public food stockholding programs for food security to be exempt from WTO farm subsidy limits.
• COVID-19 led several WTO members to impose food export restrictions to prevent shortages, which particularly threatens poor consumers in low-income, food-importing countries by driving up world food prices.
• Short-term 'low-hanging fruit' for potential WTO agreements include a General Council agreement on World Food Program (WFP) food aid, improved transparency on export restrictions, and better predictability for in-transit goods.
• A proposed compromise for agricultural domestic support involves capping and reducing trade-distorting support, but measuring it as a percentage of production value rather than in absolute terms to accommodate the views of China and India.

APA

Hepburn, J. (2020). WTO Agriculture Talks: Prospects for progress on SDG 2. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2020-12/wto-agriculture-talks-sdg-2.pdf

Chicago

Hepburn, Jonathan. WTO Agriculture Talks: Prospects for progress on SDG 2. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2020. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2020-12/wto-agriculture-talks-sdg-2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hepburn |first1=Jonathan |title=WTO Agriculture Talks: Prospects for progress on SDG 2 |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=December 2020 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2020-12/wto-agriculture-talks-sdg-2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hepburn2020wto, author = {Hepburn, Jonathan}, title = {{WTO Agriculture Talks: Prospects for progress on SDG 2}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2020}, month = dec, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2020-12/wto-agriculture-talks-sdg-2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }