Agricultural Trade

The agreements achieved by the Uruguay Round represent a milestone in the multilateral-trading system as, for the first time, agriculture has been incorporated under operationally-effective rules and discipline. These commitments in agriculture, forestry and fisheries cover improved market access and disciplines on domestic support and export subsidies, and are known as the World Trade Organization Agreements on: Agriculture, Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Technical Barriers to Trade, and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The Agreements are central to the broader package of interrelated liberalizing commitments aimed at significantly improving conditions of competition and opportunities for trade in agricultural products. They also provide for limiting the scope for circumvention of the new commitments.

The WTO Agreements present opportunities for all countries to benefit from greater access to world markets by curbing past production- and trade-distorting practices, and by facilitating more competitive and fairer trade. Signatories to the Agreements also assume the obligation of complying with their provisions. In order to fulfil this obligation and take advantage of the new opportunities, it is essential that countries develop their own capacity to examine, assess and evaluate their national circumstances in the context of the Agreements.

FAO provides advice and assistance to Member Governments in such areas as formulating and implementing improved national commodity and trade policies. Agricultural trade allows food consumption to exceed food production in those countries where output is constrained, and also plays an important role in stabilizing domestic supplies and prices of foodstuffs, so that unexpected production shortfalls do not necessarily limit food consumption. Furthermore, international agricultural trade has a major bearing on access to food, including that in impoverished rural areas, via its effects on incomes and employment. Major changes are currently taking place in the international trade environment. These are partly driven by breakthroughs in transport, communications and information technologies, and partly by policy reforms. Globalization of markets and increased economic integration are bringing new opportunities as well as risks. Agricultural trade is fully included in the changes underway.

Projects on agricultural trade could be an important enabling factor for developing and in transition countries to capitalize on the opportunities, and minimize the risks and transitional difficulties, resulting from the aforementioned situation.

• Preparatory Assistance for the World Trade Organization Negotiations on Agriculture (TCP)
  

• Phytosanitary Programme for Detection, Evaluation and Eradication of the Carambola fruitfly in the Eastern Coasts of ___ and along its borders with __ and __ (Latin America) (TCP)
  

• Trade in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
  
• Commodities and Trade Division
  
• Policy Assistance Division
  
• Codex Alimentarius Commission
  
• Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention