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- Addressing Structural Inequity: Global Trade Rules and their Impact on Food and Nutrition Security
Addressing Structural Inequity: Global Trade Rules and their Impact on Food and Nutrition Security
The issue of global trade rules and their impact on food and nutrition security has been much debated over the past few years. At the heart of these debates has been the unfair rules set out in the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) at the World Trade Organization (WTO) that allowed Europe, the USA and other rich countries to retain their subsidy regimes while severely restricting the policy and fiscal space available to Asian and African countries to provide subsidies. This allows rich countries, which provide billions of dollars in subsidies to their farmers, rich and poor, to call out India on domestic legislation, such as the National Food Security Act (2013). They paint it as trade distorting, even though many of the subsidies provided by the Indian government are for small and marginal farmers and poor consumers.