Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
considering the failure within the WTO system to comprehensively incorporate food
security concerns within its negotiating framework.
Fundamentally, the WTO's consideration of food security is ideologically sub-
sumed within the overarhing premise that trade liberalization per se improves re-
source eiciency, whih in turn aids economic growth and improved living stand-
ards. Hence, the goal of improving global food security is best pursued by imple-
menting freer world trade. Former WTO Director-General Supahai Panithpakdi
summed up this case as follows:
one of the most concrete ways whih the WTO can contribute to improving food
security is by providing the opportunity to raise income levels through economic
growth. As is recognized in the Rome Declaration and Plan of Action - trade is
a key element for food security - as it stimulates economic growth. It permits
the efficient transfer of food supplies from surplus to deficit regions. It allows
countries to become self-reliant rather than trying to become self-sufficient, re-
gardless of cost.
WTO (2005)
On subsequent occasions, whenever WTO officials have spoken at international
food security meetings, these sentiments have been consistently repeated. The
WTO's strong 'take-home message' is that if trade is liberalized, then the global
severity of food security problems will be alleviated. A revealing example of how the
concept of food security is discursively submersed within the overarhing agenda
of trade liberalization is provided in the 'glossary' section of the WTO website,
where the official FAO definition of the concept (reproduced in the section above) is
tweaked in suh a way as to make the point that trade liberalization is not antagon-
istic to food security. The glossary definition notes: Food security and self-sufficiency
are not the same, and a key debate is whether policies aiming for self-sufficiency
help or hinder food security' (WTO, 2010).
Yet interestingly, behind the public rhetoric of WTO officials, concerns by WTO
members over the relationships between food security and trade liberalization have
been a steady refrain within the course of agricultural trade negotiations during the
past decade. WTO members have voiced considerable and varied concerns about
the implications of trade liberalization to their own food security. The most notable
example of this occurred during the July 2008 Geneva Ministerial meeting, whih
saw Indian hief negotiator Kamal Nath steadfastly reject proposed liberalization of
the Agreement on Safeguards because it would leave India open to import surges
