What next? Seven talking points after the WTO’s 2024 Ministerial Conference

SEE ALSO
Scoring the results in the WTO director-general’s ‘half-full’ glass

BEFORE THE MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Overview: Cynics circle as another conference heads for small pickings
The issues: Definitely. Maybe. Unlikely. Who knows? Issues on the agenda

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By Peter Ungphakorn and Robert Wolfe
POSTED MARCH 13, 2024 | UPDATED MARCH 20, 2024

We’ve deliberately taken our time. The World Trade Organization’s 2024 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi ended almost two weeks ago, after deadlock forced it to be extended by over a day, into the early hours of March 2.

Before the conference we had warned against expecting too much. We had argued that what was going to be essential was to preserve the system. Most issues were not ripe, and the geopolitical situation meant political energy was elsewhere.

Not to cause any harm seemed to be enough to say “job done”.

Some have criticised us for being too complacent, for being satisfied with the status quo. Far from it. We were simply recognising reality.

Quite a lot has been written and said about the conference, its minor successes and the major failures to meet expectations. Here are some talking points that stand out for us. It’s time to look ahead.

Simply put: ‘PSH’, the biggest controversy in the WTO agriculture talks

SEE ALSO

In depth:
Behind the rhetoric: ‘Public stockholding for food security’ in the WTO
WTO fact sheet:
The Bali decision on stockholding for food security in developing countries
All stories on this topic (tagged “food stockholding”)

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED FEBRUARY 25, 2024 | UPDATED APRIL 22, 2024

It almost wrecked the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference in Bali in 2013. It delayed by a year the final agreement on an entirely separate topic: trade facilitation. It caused agriculture to be dropped completely from the 2022 Ministerial Conference in Geneva, and for the second time in a row, at the 2024 Abu Dhabi conference.

The misleadingly-named “public stockholding” (“PSH”) is currently the most controversial subject in the WTO’s agricultural negotiations.

Those initial letters would more appropriately stand for “(over-the-limit) Price support in food Stock-Holding”.

CONTINUE READING or use these links to JUMP DOWN THE PAGE:

What’s it about? | What are the rules? | What else is demanded? | Who has breached its subsidy limit? | So how’s it going? | In a nutshell

TABLES AND DATA: Which countries have notified eligible programmes? | India’s notified breaches of domestic support limits for rice | Rice, shares of world exports

What’s it about?

It’s probably best to start with what it’s not about.

It’s not about food stockholding. There are no WTO rules against that.

Cynics circle as another WTO Ministerial Conference heads for small pickings

SEE ALSO
The issues: Definitely. Maybe. Unlikely. Who knows? Issues on the WTO conference agenda

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By Peter Ungphakorn and Robert Wolfe
POSTED FEBRUARY 21, 2024 | UPDATED FEBRUARY 27, 2024

The cynics are circling the World Trade Organization’s upcoming Ministerial Conference with doom-laden prophecies that the “WTO” is likely to fail, again.

The cans that were kicked down the road in Geneva in 2022 are now supposed to produce content in Abu Dhabi in 2024. The prospects of that are sobering.

But the WTO is not just its Ministerial Conferences, and the purpose of these conferences is not merely concluding new agreements. Given the challenging circumstances, system preservation may be the most important outcome.

India in silent protest over Cairns Group subsidy proposal in WTO farm talks

SEE ALSO
Text: the Cairns Group’s 2023 proposal on agricultural domestic support
with notes and explanations

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UPDATE: The story below is mainly about the session on subsidised procurement for food security stocks. The meeting continued to November 22 and included a presentation by India, in a session on domestic support more generally, calling for “fixed external reference prices” to be updated. They are used to calculate trade-distorting domestic support, and are currently for 1986–88 (explained here). Reactions were mixed according to this WTO website news story.

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Posted by Peter Ungphakorn
NOVEMBER 22, 2023 | UPDATED NOVEMBER 29, 2023

World Trade Organization (WTO) agriculture negotiations were plunged deeper into deadlock this week (November 20 and 21, 2023) when India refused even to discuss a Cairns Group proposal to cut trade-distorting domestic support.

In an attempt to rescue the talks in time for the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, February 26–29, 2024, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has called an urgent on-line meeting of ministers from some key players on November 28.

Cairns Group circulates ambitious WTO plan for reforming farm support

SEE ALSO
The Cairns Group’s Analysis of Trends in Green Box Support (December 21, 2023)
Text: the Cairns Group’s 2023 proposal on agricultural domestic support
with notes and explanations

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Posted by Peter Ungphakorn
NOVEMBER 4, 2023 | UPDATED JANUARY 17, 2024

The Cairns Group of agricultural exporting countries has circulated a detailed proposal to slash trade-distorting farm support in World Trade Organization members, halving the total global entitlement to subsidise, and to resolve the deadlock over food security stocks procured through subsidy.

The proposal circulated on November 2, 2023, is drafted as a decision for the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, February 26–29, 2024. It is extremely ambitious and is unlikely to receive consensus support by February. Whether agreement on it can be reached at all, even after negotiated changes, remains to be seen.

(A revision was circulated on January 12, 2024, adding Ukraine as a new sponsor)

Its focus is on lowering the ceilings (reducing the “entitlements”) for each WTO member. This will impact countries whose present domestic support for agriculture is close to their limits but not those who have already cut their actual subsidies to much lower levels.

India ramps up rhetoric on farm support before major WTO meeting

See also
the previous meeting, an explanation of the issue
and the WTO website’s news story on the whole meeting
Agriculture negotiators discuss new proposals submitted by WTO members

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED OCTOBER 21, 2023 | UPDATED NOVEMBER 4, 2023

India has accused its critics in the World Trade Organization (WTO) of “arrogance” and contempt in opposing its position on developing countries using subsidies to purchase rice and other produce into food security stocks.

In a meeting of the WTO’s agriculture negotiations on October 19, 2023, India said, “gone are the days when we were the discipline taker and we had no knowledge and wisdom to talk about a subject that concerns us,” according to a trade official in Geneva.

India’s heightened rhetoric came four days before senior officials from capitals were due to meet in Geneva on October 23–24. The officials will attempt to develop meaningful outcomes for the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, February 2024, including on agriculture and food security.

India said that unless its critics change their “mindset”, they will prevent an agreement being reached at the Ministerial Conference.

As in the previous meeting on October 2, this session of the agriculture negotiations focused mainly on the use of government-supported prices to buy into food security stocks.

The issue is nicknamed “public stockholding” (PSH). But the name is misleading because WTO rules do not prevent stockholding. They only discipline subsidised procurement. Even that is allowed, so long as the developing country stays within its subsidy limit, usually 10% of the value of production.

Chair’s proposal to break WTO farm talks’ deadlock gets mixed reception

See also
the next meeting, an explanation of the issue, and
“Agriculture negotiators prepare ground for October senior officials meeting, MC13” on the WTO website

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED OCTOBER 3, 2023 | UPDATED OCTOBER 7, 2023

An attempt by Türkiye’s ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy to break years of deadlock in the World Trade Organization’s agriculture negotiations was partly boosted on October 2, 2023 by the European Union saying it was willing to discuss the proposals.

But the US rejected the idea as “premature” and even the EU shared the view of many sceptical countries that this issue will not be settled by the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi in February 2024.

Acarsoy, who chairs the talks, used the meeting to float ideas for limiting the knock-on effects when price-support is used to buy produce into public food-security stocks.

Two last-minute agriculture proposals land as WTO conference approaches

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 3, 2022 (REPLACING THIS ORIGINAL PAGE) | UPDATED JUNE 3, 2022

Less than two weeks before the re-scheduled World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference, two new proposals were circulated on May 31, 2022, on the most difficult subject in the agriculture negotiations — including the first from a “non-demandeur”.

The two proposals are from opposite sides on how to deal with domestic support in developing countries’ stockholding programmes for food security.

The debate in a meeting of WTO ambassadors two days later showed how far apart members still are on this with only 10 days to go before their ministers meet in Geneva. Members are now holding round-the-clock meetings to prepare for their June 12–15 Ministerial Conference

WTO farm talks head into 2022 with lots of ‘will’ but not much ‘way’

UPDATE
May 19, 2022 informal negotiations meeting: in preparation for the re-scheduled Ministerial Conference: Twitter thread (food security, export restrictions, public stockholding, agriculture negotiations as a whole).

March 21, 2022 negotiations meeting: Twitter thread, WTO news story, chair’s statement on consultations (public stockholding, special safeguard mechanism, agriculture negotiations as a whole, including a proposed session on food security)

May 31, 2022: new draft texts circulated ahead of the June 12–15 re-scheduled Ministerial Conference.

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JANUARY 25, 2022 | UPDATED JUNE 8, 2022

WTO agriculture negotiations started the year 2022 with members taking stock of where the talks were and how they might proceed, after a year of hard and intensive work that produced new proposals, but no change in fundamental, deadlocked positions.

The momentum had been created as negotiators strove to present common ground for the Ministerial Conference, scheduled for November 30–December 3, 2021, but postponed because of travel and other restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

An informal negotiation meeting on January 24, 2022, cast doubt on the fate of the only attempt to reflect the current state of the talks in a single text, according to a trade official in Geneva — “to be or not to be”, the official said.

Behind the rhetoric: ‘Public stockholding for food security’ in the WTO

SEE ALSO
Simply put: ‘PSH’, the biggest controversy in the WTO agriculture talks
all stories on this topic (tagged “food stockholding”)

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED AUGUST 24, 2020 | UPDATED FEBRUARY 10, 2024

In late March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated around the world, India announced it had broken a key trade rule.

It told fellow-members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that its domestic rice subsidies in 2018/2019 had exceeded the limit it had agreed. But instead of facing a possible legal challenge for breaking a commitment, India invoked a “peace clause” agreed in 2013 and 2014.

The issue is so controversial that the 2013/2014 deal to allow programmes like India’s to escape legal challenge was only possible with a lot of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and some strict conditions, and only as a temporary fix.

India and its allies were dissatisfied and continued to push in the WTO agriculture negotiations for a permanent replacement with more lenient conditions.

A decade later, members remain deadlocked so badly that agriculture had to be dropped almost completely from the 2022 WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva — after an odd sequence of events involving India (see below).

It threatens a repeat at the February 26–27, 2024 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi.