Multilateral Trade Reform in Agriculture and the Developing Countries

A further round of negotiations on agricultural trade liberalisation began in the WTO in March 2000. This paper discusses the interests of developing countries in these negotiations. Compared to the developed countries, developing countries have relatively few 'rights' to agricultural support under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture and thus have an interest in pressing for a significant tightening of agricultural support disciplines. On the other hand, food importing and least developed countries wish to retain the maximum amount of flexibility to pursue domestic food security and rural development policies and are concerned about the possible negative effects of higher world food prices resulting from a reduction in developed country agricultural support. An important aspect of the negotiations is the extent to which developing countries will be able to, or should, rely on special and differential treatment to reconcile these differences. Developing countries need significant technical and financial assistance to enable them to participate in the negotiations in a meaningful way.