IFPRI in collaboration with IDEAS center is organizing a seminar in Geneva on September 26, 2022. This event will identify consensus-based practical solutions to enhance food security in LDCs for the WTO MC13.

This year’s World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference, the WTO MC12, took place in Geneva on June 12-15, 2022. The outcome of the negotiations, the “Geneva Package” is a laudable milestone for agricultural negotiations, especially with the large multilateral trade agreement to reduce harmful fisheries subsidies (the new WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsides) and the exemption from export prohibitions and restrictions on purchases for non-commercial humanitarian food aid by the World Food Programme (WFP). However, some long-deadlocked issues in the agricultural negotiations still need to be resolved, especially for least developed countries (LDCs) that are facing a major food crisis exacerbated by the export restrictions measures imposed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Indeed, since export restrictions tend to target commodities and staple food products (wheat, rice, soybean, palm oil), their impacts are larger for the LDCs that depend on such products for their basic needs. As shown in the figure, currently more than 25% of LDC agricultural imports (measured in calories) are impacted by such export restrictions, while the share is below 15% for developed economies.

IFPRI Participants (Presentation) 

• Joseph Glauber, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI
• David Laborde Debucquet, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI
• Valeria Piñeiro, Acting Head of the Latin American region & Senior Research Coordinator, IFPRI