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CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED
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Emile
Houngbo, National University of Agriculture, Porto-Novo (UNA), Benin
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Agricultural trade and food security are two factors important for economic growth and development. They are concerned
about public policy. That's why, through the 2014 Malabo Declaration, African governments made a specific and clear commitment to boosting intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services, and to harnessing market and trade opportunities locally,
regionally, and internationally. This is also why a place of choice has been given to the fight against hunger in the SDGs, especially the 2nd SDG, which aims to eliminate hunger, ensure food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
Unfortunately, the logic that governs agricultural trade is fundamentally different from that governing the achievement of food security for the population. While agricultural trade is governed by the economic rule of profit maximization, food security is
governed by the social rule of justice and altruism for the production of sufficient human resources for development. It even happens that this contradiction of logic leads to what I called "perverse trade" in my article entitled “When Food Trade Threatens
Food Security of Small Farmers in West Africa: the Perverse Food Trade”.
This article is accessible
here.
This means that trade is not the right way to eradicate hunger by 2030 as the SDGs provide. Precise answers to the three
questions of the discussion are provided below.
1. Do you think the provisions of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) provide sufficient policy space for
domestic support for countries in Africa? Why or why not?
The general approach of the Agreement on Agriculture with regard to domestic support is to allow unlimited support through
policies. As far as I’m concerned, I think these provisions of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) could provide surely sufficient policy space for domestic support for countries in Africa. For, if properly applied, they can improve production, crop yield,
product conservation and the limitation of food losses and waste. In short, they are provisions that will lead globally to abundant agricultural production. But, it should be emphasized that to be effective, the efforts must be centered on "staple crops".
Effective promotion of the staple crops requires taking into account the different food systems at both national and intra-national levels in West Africa.
2. In your opinion, do export restrictions enhance or undermine food security in African countries? Should the
WTO disciplines on export restrictions be stricter or allow greater flexibility?
Generally, export restrictions of agricultural products are not effective. Two reasons justify this phenomenon. First,
export restrictions are never effective in the long run. They can only really be used in case of emergency to respond punctually to a random phenomenon that has negatively affected food availability (flood, drought, ...). The second reason is that trade is
still essential for a proper distribution of agricultural products. As then, trade is a means of optimizing labor productivity among the countries in the West African sub-region. This is an economic theory already known and supported by the Economist David
RICARDO; the theory of comparative advantage.
3. What efforts can be made at the multilateral level, to complement regional integration efforts? In your opinion,
are there some policy areas that are better addressed at the multilateral level, and others at the regional level?
Regional legal measures hardly succeed in West Africa. The success of decisions will not necessarily come from regional
or multilateral measures, but from objective, realistic and inclusive national measures. For, corruption, language barriers, poor communication routes and poor physical security of people are often obstacles to compliance with regional legal provisions in
Africa in general, and West Africa in particular.
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Krishna
Rao Pinninti, Climate and Development Strategies LLC, USA
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Boosting intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services, when properly handled to reap the benefits of
comparative advantage in agricultural production, tends to be a good idea. However, various rules and regulations under the WTO regime do not mean much on the ground. This is because of lack of transparent and accountable mechanisms and enforcement of rules
at different levels. Various provisions may remain on paper rather than enhance trade and food security. Given the limited total market power of the region for trade volume there should be little surprise that the mechanisms cannot contribute to effective
agricultural transformation.
What remains more relevant in this context is the role of value chain approach to production, processing and export,
within the region and outside - based on sustainable agriculture methods and focus on small farm innovations. Provision of self-enforcing incentive mechanisms (such as recognizing and supporting high productivity) could be useful. Inter-agency cooperative
efforts (domestic and international) will be rewarding to the populations, in general. Excessive exploitation of natural resources to maximize trade can be detrimental to sustainable production, trade and development. The focus needs to be more on the fulfilment
of Sustainable Development Goals using pragmatic mechanisms in this context.
see also: P K Rao International Environmental Law and Economics (Blackwell)
P K Rao The World Trade Organization and the Environment (Macmillan)
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Jacques
Berthelot, SOL, France
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Version
française disponible ici
The concession granted to the LDCs of not having to reduce the customs tariffs, -- given that the structural adjustment
policies in reality already prevented them from being increased -- and allowing for their exports not to be taxed in the majority of developed and emerging countries, has been a poisoned chalice. Following the EU Everything but Arms (EBA) initiative opening
its markets without customs taxes or quotas on their exports, Via Campesina and the Réseau des organisations paysannes et des producteurs agricoles d'Afrique de l'Ouest [West Africa Network of Peasants and Agricultural Producers] (ROPPA) underlined in a joint
communication of 13th May 2001 that "the priorities of the peasants and their families in the LDCs is firstly to be able to produce for their family, then to have access to the domestic market, much before exporting. The European decision on the contrary only
goes to strengthen the profits of the large companies using LDCs' resources and labor to export crops towards the EU … thus increasing food insecurity." Indeed, according to UNCTAD data, exports from African LDCs have increased much less towards the EU28
than to the rest of the world, from 2001 to 2016: 38.5% less for all products combined and 43.6% less for food products, despite the EBA program. And the manufactured products share of their total exports towards the UE28 has passed from 34% in 2001 to 20%
in 2016. All the resources mobilized for these exports have reduced those available for food self-sufficiency. In this respect, the food deficit of the LDCs has increased by 12.5% per year from 1995 to 2016, because their imports have increased 9% and their
exports 6.6%.
Furthermore, the EU obliges LDCs of the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) to reduce by 80% their custom tariffs on
their exports in the framework of regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA), violating in this way its Declaration "Everything but Arms." The EPA combined with West Africa could therefore see a reduction in the customs receipts - custom tariffs plus
VAT on imports - accumulated for these countries of 32.2 billion euros between 2020 and 2035, of which 15.5 billion euros for the LDCs, and among these 3.9 billion euros on agricultural products.
Another scandal arises in the importance of subsidies to agricultural products exported by the developed countries, in
particular the members of the EU, who refuse to take into account the internal subsidies, never considered in the free trade agreements, in particular the EPAs, under the pretext that the rules concerning them are the exclusive competence of the WTO. Yet,
the EU has refused a debate on the green box, under which title they notify the detached subsidies - 38.3 billion euros in 2015 - and which does not take into account subsides on animal food in exported animal products. Thus, the EU28 subsidies to its world
exports of dairy products has reached 2 billion euros in 2016, with a dumping rate of 13.2%. On this total, the subsidies to West Africa were 168.6 million euros, with a 20.8% dumping rate. Likewise, the 59.3 Mt of cereals exported by the EU28 in 2016 were
subsided by 3.585 billion euros (60.4 euros/ton), a rate of dumping of 34.4% on bulk grain. Of this total, the 3.4 Mt of cereals exported to West Africa have benefited from subsidies of 215 million euros. There again ,the completion of the regional EPA will
strongly increase this dumping because the customs tariffs on cereals, other than rice, will go from 5 to 0%, which will already happen for the interim EPAs of Ivory Coast and Ghana.
It is urgent to radically reform the EU agricultural policies, and those of developing countries including South Saharan
Africa, in respect of food sovereignty so as to achieve the second of the SDGs on food security. To ensure a sustainable agricultural development, the Sub-Saharan African countries must modify radically their agricultural policies by ensuring stable and remunerative
prices to farmers. That means that the regional economic communities like ECOWAS and EAC become complete members of the WTO, in the same way as the EU. They will benefit from consolidated customs tariffs because their common external tariffs (CET) only affect
the customs duties applied. They could then reform their CETs on variable levies - so efficient for the EU to develop agricultural production before the WTO - so that the ad valorem equivalent of variable levies does not exceed the consolidated duty.
So that the levies on agricultural prices do not penalize the poor consumers, these regional economic communities will
implement a large scale domestic food aid program, in the form of regional food products, as is done in India and the USA, funded by international cooperation, in particular, long term loans from the International Development Association (IDA), subsidiary
of the World Bank. That would be one element of a” Marshall plan” for Sub-Saharan Africa, besides an infrastructure component for the domestic exchanges, a component for the transformation of local food products to substitute imports of wheat and a component
for non-agricultural employment by lifting the customs duties on the textile-clothing sector to ensure profitable outlets for African cotton. This assumes that the EU stops aligning itself with the USA in order to find within the WTO a permanent solution
to the rules on public stocks of food security.
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Wajid
Pirzada, Roots Pakistan, Pakistan
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1. The biggest challenges youth in Africa face after going through youth-specific capacity development initiatives in
agriculture is the employability with a reasonable level of compensation and availability of humane work conditions. Youth trained in agriculture looks at other fields, such as businesses, IT, etc. and does not find agriculture very "glamorous". Part of the
reason is that most agricultural raw materials are not truly costed, and hence the small margins, specifically at production stage.
3. In terms of post-capacity development support, there is a big scope for youth e-networks, communities of practice,
innovation platforms, etc. that can keep them aware of emerging opportunities and sharing and co-learning about how to solve such challenges through experience sharing. I think placing youth representation in agricultural policy and implementation fora can
also provide country specific solutions by identifying and addressing barriers.
4. In Africa, like many other developing countries, policies alone remain inadequate. Availability of policy is no guarantee
that the policies will get implemented in letter and spirit. Probably once idea could be encouraging large businesses to experiment with youth led initiatives, such as agribusiness incubator programs. Governments could, for example, provide tax rebate for
business engaging youth.
5. There is a large untapped potential for universities, governments, development organizations, and donors to work
together to launch e-learning courses, Massive Open Online Courses, learning repositories, and providing space for virtual interactions. There is a large amount of knowledge on both successes and failures in empowering and engaging youth in agriculture, but
this knowledge is scattered and could be shared through use of ICT. ICT could also facilitate match-making between capacitated youth and youth demand.
Another un-attended CD area is the youth capacity in agricultural science within the context of impending effects of
climate change. I am not aware if any African university has even looked at revising their curricula to address new issues due to warming, shifting rain and temperature patterns etc. etc. The (agricultural) science being taught and practiced in Africa is reductionist
and compartmentalized in nature and needs to re-orient to newer models of inter and transdisciplinary science as opposed to multi-disciplinary organization of universities. In addition, peer review capacity is extremely lacking in Africa.
We at ICRAF had proposed a skeleton of an initiatives to African Academy of Science back in 2015, but it did not materialize
so far.
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