WTO Agriculture Talks: Prospects for progress on SDG 2

This policy brief examines the restart of agriculture negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in September 2020 under Chair Gloria Abraham Peralta. It analyzes the challenges of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and shifting global trade dynamics, while outlining seven key negotiating areas and potential pathways for progress.

• WTO agriculture negotiations restarted in September 2020 under Chair Gloria Abraham Peralta, with a primary focus on farm subsidy reform (agricultural domestic support) ahead of the Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12).
• The WTO Chair has identified seven ongoing negotiating areas: three based on existing Agreement on Agriculture rules (domestic support, market access, and export competition) and four more recent topics (trade in cotton, food export restrictions, public food stockholding, and a new "special safeguard mechanism").
• The United States, China, India, and the European Union 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, is seeking a "permanent solution" for public food stockholding to ensure that food purchased at government-set prices for food security does not count toward maximum permitted farm subsidy limits.
• COVID-19 prompted several WTO members to impose food export restrictions to prevent shortages, leading to calls for improved transparency and a Singapore-led proposal to exempt United Nations humanitarian food aid purchases from such restrictions.
• Potential "low-hanging fruit" for short-term progress includes 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 domestic support could involve capping and reducing trade-distorting support, but measuring it as a percentage of production value rather than in absolute terms, a method favored by 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} }