Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 2 • Number 2 • 7th February 2002
Members Split on ‘Development Box’ in Agriculture
Members Split on ‘Development Box’ in Agriculture
On 4-6 February, WTO Members met for the last Special Session in the current Phase II of the ongoing agriculture negotiations held under the auspices of the Committee on Agriculture (CoA) to discuss mainly development-related issues, including the establishment of a so-called “Development Box”, as well as special and differential treatment (S&D) for developing countries. The debate principally revolved around the question of whether or not different sets of rules should be established for developed and developing countries that would partly exempt the latter from commitments under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
According to some developing countries, the developmental aspect of agriculture can have various implications for the environment. In a earlier technical paper, Argentina stated that, “Protecting the environment is a compromise between reaping short-term benefits and investing for the future”. Some developing countries argue, for instance, that their farmers do not have the benefit of massive subsidisation as do their OECD counterparts. Poorer countries’ short-term survival concerns override their ability to focus on long-term sustainable exploitation. As a result, they say, addressing long-term environmental concerns becomes an extravagance when rich, subsidised trading partners can displace developing countries’ farm products from domestic and international markets.
The idea of a Development Box was championed by the so-called Like-Minded Group (LMG), comprised of countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria, Cuba and Zimbabwe (see BRIDGES Weekly, 25 October 1999). The term Development Box indicates that a new category of agricultural policy measures besides existing ones — i.e. the Amber Box (covering trade distortive subsidies), the Blue Box (payments under production-limiting programmes) and the Green Box (payments deemed to be not more than minimally trade distorting) — should be established exclusively for developing countries’ use.
In order to protect developing countries from cheap, subsidised products exported by industrialised countries, this new Development Box should — as part of the WTO principle of S&D — allow all developing countries to (a) choose the products they want to make commitments on [as against the overall approach taken by the AoA]; (b) with regard to “staple foodstuffs/food security crops”, to raise tariffs beyond their bound levels so as to protect food security; (c) further increase trade distorting price supports for these key products; and (d) ability to use a special safeguard mechanism for staple foodstuffs which would protect their farmers against surges of cheap food imports.
At the CoA meeting, many developing countries supported the idea of establishing a Development Box and added their own ideas for its contents, including better market access to developed countries’ markets and binding commitments on technical assistance. Whereas Northern countries such as the EU, US, Japan, Switzerland and the Cairns Group of food exporting nations accepted the need for S&D treatment for developing countries, they opposed the idea of creating a “two tier system” by which developing countries would be waived from their WTO agricultural commitments. The EU did “not believe that it would be in the interest of developing countries to accept the idea that they should actually increase their tariffs” as “the greatest potential for increase in agricultural trade lies in increasing demand in developing countries.”
The Ministerial Declaration adopted in Doha, Qatar, in November last year stresses the need “to ensure that developing countries…secure a share in the growth of world trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development”. On agriculture, the Declaration, inter alia, provides that S&D should “enable developing countries to effectively take into account their development needs.” Negotiations on agriculture will continue in Special Sessions of the CoA under the mandate of the Doha Ministerial Declaration.
Additional Resource
For additional background information on these issues, see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 6 December 2001 and the WTO backgrounder “The issues, and where we are now“.
“Agriculture: Major Traders Throw Cold Water On Calls For ‘Development Box’ in Agriculture Talks” WTO REPORTER, 7 February 2002; “EU Signals Opposition To WTO Farm Waiver For Poor,” REUTERS, 5 February 2002; “Developing Countries Urge Special Treatment In WTO Agriculture Talks,” AFP, 6 February 2002. ICTSD Internal Files.