Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda

Abstract

Abolition of tariffs, subsidies and domestic support programs would boost global welfare by nearly $300 billion per year by 2015, says a new World Bank research study, Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda, published November 2005. Close to two-thirds of these gains would come from agricultural trade reform, because agriculture is so much more distorted than other sectors. \'Within agriculture, market access barriers are the key. Deep reductions in agricultural tariffs would deliver 12 times the gains that would be achieved by abolishing export subsidies and trade-distorting domestic support to agriculture,\' said Will Martin, lead economist in the Bank's trade research group. \'Making agricultural markets more accessible is the most fundamental reform that needs to emerge from the Doha round of WTO negotiations.\'