Agricultural Export Subsidies and Domestic Support reform under the WTO System:What does it mean for Welfare in West Africa?

This article focuses on analyzing the potential welfare impacts the West African region will experience from reforming agricultural export subsidies and domestic support in developed and developing countries under the Doha Development Agenda. Results indicate that consumers of nearly all of the commodities analyzed will encounter welfare losses, while almost all producers of these commodities will experience welfare gains. However, the gains by producers are insufficient to compensate consumers¡¯ losses, and so all fourteen West African nations analyzed will end up with net welfare losses from these reforms. This finding validates other research results indicating that net food importing countries will become losers of agricultural trade reform, while net food exporters will experience more welfare gains. The implications for the region will be more poverty and heightened food insecurity as three of the countries in the region¡ªNiger, Sierra Leone and Liberia were already listed in the 2008 Global Hunger Index report as nations hardest hit by hunger.