Promise or pitfall? The limited gains from agricultural trade liberalisation for developing countries

Abstract

It has become an article of faith in international trade negotiations that farmers in developing countries have much to gain from agricultural trade liberalisation. This paper assesses the evidence for such claims, relying on World Bank data and analyses, United Nations trade data, and other economic modelling carried out to inform the current round of World Trade Organisation negotiations. It concludes that the promise of agricultural trade liberalisation is overstated, while the costs to small-scale farmers in developing countries are often very high.

Keywords:

• agriculture
• trade
• commodities
• rural development
• liberalisation

Notes

¹See, for example, Oya (2009) and others in the excellent ‘Symposium on the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development?’

²This paper was originally written as a framework document for this project.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy A. Wise

An earlier version of this work appeared under the title ‘The limited promise of agricultural trade liberalization’, published as a discussion paper by the Indian Institute Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries (RIS-DP #152, New Delhi, March 2009). The research was originally carried out for a project of the Working Group on Development and Environment in the Americas, ‘The promise and the perils of agricultural trade liberalization: lessons from the Americas’ (see http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/WorkingGroupAgric.htm), which has published an earlier version in Spanish as a chapter in the book, La promesa y los peligros de la liberalisación del comercio agrícola: lecciones de Latinoamérica. The author would like to thank those who have offered comments on the discussion paper as well as those at The Journal of Peasant Studies for their constructive suggestions. Remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the author.