• Agriculture

Agriculture

Food aid is on the menu at the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) Round of World Trade Organisation negotiations. A potential new WTO agreement is almost certain to contain rules that will limit the circumstances under which food aid will be allowed. Negotiating parties are concerned that food aid has been used as a form of export competition policy, and they seek the use of coercive WTO legislation to prevent the disposal of surplus agricultural commodities as food aid. Current Uruguay Round food aid guidelines are contrasted in this paper with the most recent Doha Development Agenda proposals, and the prospective effectiveness of new rules is assessed.

The author highlights how Food aid rules will be difficult to enforce within the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding. Also, exogenous policy changes in donor countries are reducing the relevance of rules that target food aid as a means of surplus disposal. The future of international food aid governance in the event of a Doha Round collapse is additionally discussed. Areas considered include:

• the history of the WTO and food aid
• the future of food aid in the WTO
• food aid shipments and the indirect effects of export subsidy and export credit
• alternative venues for developing new food aid guidelines
  

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