Agricultural Trade in a Post-Pandemic World

Food security and food safety issues during the COVID-19 pandemic call for a full-fledged action plan on agricultural trade with a view to ensure undisrupted flows of essential food commodities, on the one hand, and developmental aspirations of developing countries, and especially least developed countries (LDCs), on the other hand. This policy brief proposes a new G20 Plan of Action on Agricultural Trade in a Post-Pandemic World. The Plan should focus on the issue of export restrictions on a priority basis in view of the food security implications of export barriers imposed on food commodities, as well as the vulnerability of developing countries, especially low-income, food-import-dependent countries, to the  disruptive effects of uncooperative trade instruments in general. Other important areas to tackle include addressing market access barriers in agricultural products, namely sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBT), which would prevent a post-pandemic expansion of food trade for the global South and impair developing countries’ participation in key decision-making processes and institutions, and in global food value chains.