SDG #2 is to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”
Within SDG #2 are eight targets, of which we here focus on Target 2.b, which is:
Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round.
Target 2.b has a singular indicator:
Indicator 2.b.1: agricultural export subsidies.
First of all, what is the Doha Development Round?
The Doha Development Round is a so-called round of negotiations within the World Trade Organisation, which began in 2001 at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, the capital of Qatar, focused on the topic of lowering barriers to international trade. Whilst the WTO is an intergovernmental organisation, it is not part of the UN System.
WTO Ministerial Conferences were subsequently held in Cancun and Hong Kong, but the contentions hindering agreement between developed and developing countries, particularly around agriculture subsidies paid by governments to agribusinesses, has been a relative constant, and is currently at an impasse.
Trade in goods and services between countries is generally considered a good thing. But when countries adopt protectionist economic policies such as taxes on imports or exports, import quotas, or any other hindrance at customs, other countries may consider such policies to put themselves at a relative trade disadvantage, in terms of the effect such policies could have on farmers and consumers in their own country.
Not all countries are members of the WTO, though 164 of the UN Member States are WTO Members. Largely, the organisation exists with the purpose of members collectively lowering tariffs and trade barriers, for both goods, as well as services and intellectual property, as well as setting out the procedures for settling disputes, whilst allowing for special treatment for developing countries.
An important WTO treaty in the context of Target 2.b is the Agreement on Agriculture. This brings up another round of international trade negotiation, this one known as the Uruguay Round, under the aegis of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade, the forebear of the WTO.
The culmination of the Uruguay Round was the Marrakesh Agreement in Morocco, which established the WTO itself, as well as the Agreement on Agriculture was signed in April 1994.
It’s common for countries to support their domestic agriculture sectors, including subsidies for agricultural goods to be exported. In the jargon of Article 1 of the Agreement on Agriculture, this support is measured using the term the “Aggregate Measurement of Support”, for the annual monetary outlay in favour of an agricultural product. The idea is any support of income or price which boosts exports, or limits imports from another country, in a free trade environment, other countries are going to want to know why such support for the given product was necessary if they’re not to do likewise in their own countries.
By definition of the WTO’s Subsidies Agreement, subsidies are any benefits conferred by government in the forms of transferring funds or guaranteeing loans, tax credits, providing goods or services outside of infrastructure, or otherwise purchasing goods, as well as financing a body outside of government to emulate the aforementioned functions. Per the Subsidies Agreement, WTO members are not to use subsidies causing adverse effects to other members, in the form of “injury to the domestic industry of another member”, or “causing serious prejudice to their interests of another Member”. Under Article 6 of the Subsidies Agreement, this is deemed as subsidisation greater than 5% of its value, debt forgiveness, and covering losses of an industry or a business, with the exception of once-off instances.
Measuring the target of eliminating agricultural export subsidies by 2030, using data from the WTO, the world has reduced this amount to the equivalent of $58 million as of 2019, down from $217 million at the adoption the SDGs in 2015, and a height of $6.69 billion in 1999.
