Flawed Global Rules in Agriculture: Need for a New Approach

27 October 2016

Current global agriculture rules perpetuate market concentration in the North and dumping in the South

Multi-media by

Benny Kuruvilla

Re-Asserting Control: Voluntary Return, Restitution and the Right to Land for IDPs and Refugees in Myanmar - cover — Re-Asserting Control: Voluntary Return, Restitution and the Right to Land for IDPs and Refugees in Myanmar

Sophia Murphy, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) speaks with Benny Kuruvilla from the Transnational Institute.

In the past 20 years, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has failed to address basic inequities in world agriculture. Subsidies, dumping of agriculture products by the North and market concentration continue unabated.

The current crisis at the WTO, the emergence of bilateral and mega Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) such as the Trans Pacific Agreement (TPP) have further complicated the urgent issue of fundamental reform of agriculture trade rules.

What is urgently required is a new framework for global agriculture that embraces principles of agro-ecology, remunerative prices, sustainable livelihoods and ecological sustainability. We need reforms and subsidies that benefit peasants, not agribusiness.