{"id":241916,"date":"2023-05-11T19:55:53","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T14:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=241916"},"modified":"2023-05-11T19:55:53","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T14:25:53","slug":"fortifying-food-security-wto-norms-should-be-made-more-realistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/fortifying-food-security-wto-norms-should-be-made-more-realistic\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortifying food security – WTO norms should be made more realistic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source:\u00a0<\/strong>The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cFortifying food security – WTO norms should be made more realistic” <\/strong>published in the Business Standard <\/strong>on\u00a011th May 2023.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS \u2013 3: food security.<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: About issues with AoA.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: Recently, the agriculture committee of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held a special session in Geneva. In that, <\/span>India urged the WTO to find a permanent solution to the issue of farm subsidies and public stockholding for food security.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

About the history of the tussle between India and WTO<\/h2>\n

Food security matter has been hotly debated since the inception of the WTO\u2019s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)<\/a>. The AoA had prescribed an irrational outer limit for farm subsidies of 10%\u00a0of the value of crop production, based on the prices prevailing between 1986 and 1988.<\/p>\n

Any outgo on agricultural support in excess of this cap is deemed trade-distorting. However, an ad hoc relief measure was stipulated for the developing countries during the WTO\u2019s ministerial summit at Bali in 2013 in the form of the \u201cPeace Clause\u201d.<\/p>\n

India has often taken refuge under Peace Clause because of a)<\/strong> large stock accumulation due to its market, b)<\/strong> farm-income support policies entailing open-ended crop procurement at minimum support prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: WTO terminologies: Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), Blue| Green| Amber Box, Peace clause<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What are the issues with AoA?<\/h2>\n

a)<\/strong> The agreement limits the developing countries\u2019 space for extending price support for farm commodities and restricts their policy space for taking up food-security programmes for the teeming poor, b)<\/strong> Relentless food inflation has rendered the existing food-stocking and farm-subsidy norms totally unrealistic, c) <\/strong>Exacerbated uncertainties about food production and global supplies due to climate change and geo-political factors, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict have also made the ceiling ineffective.<\/p>\n

About the demand for a permanent solution<\/h2>\n

Many countries including China, South Africa, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and many other African and Asian nations are in support of India to find a permanent solution. Any alternative plan has to be better, and more practical, than the present Peace Clause-based\u00a0interim arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: Public stockholding of grains to stay\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What should be considered while formulating a permanent solution?<\/h2>\n

-Ideally, the benchmark prices should be revised periodically, taking the average prices of the previous five years into account. This should be included.<\/p>\n

-The food security-oriented programmes launched by various countries after the introduction of the Peace Clause in 2013 should also be factored in while assessing the aggregate measure of support to agriculture.<\/p>\n

India, China, and several other countries demanded text-based negotiations for fixing the agenda for the next WTO ministerial meeting scheduled in Abu Dhabi. The WTO members should adhere to this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source:\u00a0The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cFortifying food security – WTO norms should be made more realistic” published in the Business Standard on\u00a011th May 2023. Syllabus: GS \u2013 3: food security. Relevance: About issues with AoA. News: Recently, the agriculture committee of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held a special session in Geneva. In that,… Continue reading Fortifying food security – WTO norms should be made more realistic<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[10503,216],"class_list":["post-241916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-business-standard","tag-gs-paper-3","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}