David Laborde - International Food Policy Research Institute
Sophia Murphy - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Valentina Pernechele - FAO
Michael Fakhri - UN
Globally, governments provide over $600 billion per year in support to their agricultural sectors. And yet, this support is not being effectively used to achieve public policy objectives, such as improving food security or nutrition, reducing poverty, raising incomes, reducing greenhouse gas emission, or protecting biodiversity. There is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity to repurpose the support going to agriculture to ensure it contributes to these bold public policy objectives. So, what can WTO members do to fix this problem? New research from FAO, IFPRI, UNEP, UNDP, and the World Bank provide evidence to build a new reform agenda at the WTO and break the two-decade old deadlock in reforming domestic support. This session will present new research on repurposing agricultural subsidies, debate the pros and cons of the existing evidence, and put forward a new agenda for domestic support reform at the WTO.