The governance of agriculture imports in developing countries has been seriously eroded under past and present episodes of trade liberalization. There is ample evidence of the disastrous impacts of agriculture trade liberalization on different livelihood economies. Therefore countries policy space needs to be restored to protect local livelihoods and promote household and national food security.

 

For one, there is some flexibility in the current negotiations to strengthen import governance, with regard to the three pillars market access, export subsidies, and domestic support, such as the re-introductino of tarifs, ort he implementation of Safeguard clauses. Beyond the WTO, additional policy options emerge. State-trading enterprises should not be further dismantled, but rather be strengthened in order to affect trade by influencing domestic and international prices. STEs should have control on the volume of products traded (sold or bought) in the internal market, and they should have sole authority to import and to restrict the quantity or volume of imports, as this will have an effect on the domestic price, like a tariff. Besides defending price support, STEs may also take care of food distribution and making food available to the people at affordable costs. Apart from that, countries should have full flexibility to use border measures other than tariffs. Governments must always maintain their option to use quantitative restrictions, or price band systems and variable import levies in order to stabilize internal prices for agricultural commodities.

 

What remains to international trade regulation, finally, is to ensure strong regulation of dumping, international price volatility and market concentration. Important policy instruments should include supply management to avoid agriculture surplus production, abolition of all direct and indirect export subsidies, and international commodity agreements to control supply at the international level to guarantee a fair price for peasants still dependent on a few export crops like coffee, cotton, etc. It is also equally important to institute regulatory mechanisms to control and regulate transnational activities in agriculture and food. In all these political processes, the capacity and the bargaining power of major stakeholders and producers’ groups must be strengthened.

 

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