United Nations: strengthening the coordination of trade and agricultural development policies to achieve food security

People's Daily, United Nations, December 9 (Reporter Yin Miao)-the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released a report on "the State of Agricultural products Market" in Rome, Italy on the 9th. The report believes that regulations governing international trade in agricultural products should focus on improving national food security and other development goals, there is a need to take practical measures at the national level to expand food trade and coordinate agricultural and trade policies to achieve national and global food security goals.

The latest issue of the organization's flagship publication aims to reduce the current polarization of views on agricultural trade. Some insist that free trade can promote the supply of and access to food, while others believe that trade issues should be treated more cautiously, including safeguards for developing countries, taking into account recent food price fluctuations.

Over the past decade, great changes have taken place in the field of global trade, tripling the value of trade in food alone, especially those driven by fruits, vegetables, fish, meat and dairy products. In addition, the economic and geographical situation has also changed. Latin America has replaced North America as the largest net exporter of food, showing a new political map of South-South trade. At the same time, the number of regional trade agreements has soared. Although agricultural imports are distributed in many countries, exports are mainly concentrated in a few countries, such as sugar in Brazil or coarse grains in the United States, making supply disruptions more vulnerable.

At the same time, new and more subtle dynamic changes are taking place in trade patterns, including the rise and vertical integration of global value chains in the field of agricultural production and marketing. In terms of such trends, although participation in the value chain also provides important income-generating opportunities for small farmers, however, market forces and standardization, which are as important as price issues, touch on competitive market assumptions and traditional practices that make full use of comparative advantage. The "supermarket revolution" in many developing countries is also changing the balance between opportunities and risks. On the one hand, retail chains break the habit of buying goods and adopt direct purchasing methods. For example, the market share of the three largest multinational banana trading companies has rapidly halved, from 70% in 2002 to 37% today. On the other hand, although supermarkets are usually aimed at urban low-income consumers, producers may be affected by their inability to make the necessary investments to meet the requirements of quantity, cost, quality and uniform calibration.

Agricultural Market conditions points out that the expected growth in global agricultural trade, accompanied by changes in trade patterns and multiple risks in global supply, will make trade and its governance have an increasingly important impact on the extent and nature of food security around the world. As a result, the challenge for policy makers has evolved to ensure that the expansion of agricultural trade "promotes, rather than hinders, the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition". The subtitle of the report is "better balance between national priorities and collective interests". It emphasizes that the role of trade depends on national characteristics, such as income, economic and land ownership structures, as well as the stage of agricultural development and farmers' participation in global value chains. Given that national conditions are so different, international rules on the formulation of national trade policies should support efforts to mitigate disruptions affecting the four aspects of food security (availability, access, utilization and stability).

The report says it is increasingly important to coordinate short-term and long-term goals because disruptors vary widely in nature and market shocks caused by geopolitical, weather and policy uncertainties become more complex. Efforts originally designed to intervene and protect domestic markets from global price volatility may eventually lead to increased domestic price volatility, agricultural incentives have an important role to play in promoting agricultural production and efficiency and promoting broader economic growth.

The report argues that appropriate policies usually depend on the development and competitiveness of the domestic market and provide participants with tools to manage risks. Where these conditions are not yet available, domestic support policies should not be completely excluded, and the integration of food security into the decision-making process of trade policy is one way to make trade the "driver" of sustainable development and the core goal of hunger eradication.