What Kenya can do to gain from lifting of WTO farm subsidies

Workers at the National Cereals and Produce Board depot offload maize delivered by farmers. PHOTO | FILE 

By CAROLINE

In Summary

• State needs to stop being an active operator in the market to prevent inefficiencies.

Developing nations fought a good fight at the latest round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks.

Their lobbying appears to have borne fruit, with pledges to have farm subsidies in developed countries come to a stop – or at least become significantly diminished – by 2020.

For a long time, developed countries’ support of their agriculture sector has been deemed unfair and declared the root cause of the eroded potential of agricultural development in poor and developing countries.

Certainly, farm subsidies by developed countries have been a long standing disincentive to investing in agriculture in developing regions such as sub-Sahara Africa.

With that era coming to an end, it’s high time we took stock of our own agricultural sector’s strengths and weaknesses.

Assuming the pledges at the WTO are observed and the playing field is levelled for all, chances are we are about to find out that we have not have cornered the global agricultural produce market to the extent we imagined.

As agricultural monetary incentives fall off elsewhere in the world made possible by our own pressure on WTO, we realise that, as developing countries, we may have played our last card. 

Yet, it is not the fair rules that we have fought so intensely for that will finally lift us out of our agricultural sector rut.

Farm subsidies, though significant, have not been the only advantage that developed countries have had over poor ones. Agriculture in sub-Sahara Africa is plagued with ginormous other challenges.

The sector in most developed countries is already much more advanced in terms of policy, technology and markets. Vis-a-vis these nations, we have a steep learning curve to scale just to catch up.

Creation of a fair market is one thing. The ability for all to be able to participate in it significantly is another thing. As sub-Sahara Africa, we need to evaluate how to reap the full benefits of the opportunity that is about to present itself.

As we brace for 2020, we must be careful that our own recommendations to the rest of the world do not evolve to become our biggest pitfall.

Having started this quarrel with the WTO and won, developing nations have in effect put themselves under the microscope. They can expect they will be called upon to pull down any safeguards they have been enjoying.

Case in point, Agoa. Such a trade-off is almost certain to be invoked.

It is inevitable also that there will be a massive restructuring in the affected countries to prepare for the elimination of subsidies.