Trade Win No. 4
Global trade makes food safe and affordable
Today’s consumers have access to truly global diets; they can choose from a wide variety of safe, nutritious foods at affordable prices. Since 2000, global agriculture exports have more than tripled, from $409 billion to $1.49 trillion in 2020. The number of countries providing these exports is also expanding; in 2000, around 90 countries exported more than $10m in food and agricultural products, but nearly 130 countries export at that level today.
This bounty is made possible by international food safety, animal and plant health standards and the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement. Together, they facilitate trade in food and agriculture while protecting public health, agricultural productivity, farmer livelihoods, and biodiversity.
Without the adoption and use of international standards, farmers and food processors would be left on their own to navigate multiple, complex and costly risk mitigation protocols, and accessing new markets would be prohibitive for many. Importing countries often lack capacity to conduct separate assessments of products and risk mitigation methods. Utilizing international standards allows importers to grant market access with the confidence that internationally approved standards and mitigation methods effectively protect consumers, livestock and plant populations.
Since 2000, The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and the Codex Alimentarius (Codex) have adopted more than 1,100 standards, protocols and guidelines to ensure food and feed safety, reduce the spread of animal disease, and recognize equivalence between mitigation systems. While the standards themselves are important, these organizations also work collaboratively with national regulators, NGOs and the private sector to ensure governments and industries can implement new standards and gain access to new markets. This includes projects like the Global Framework for the Progressive Control of African Swine Fever (ASF), which brought together WOAH, governments and farmers in Vietnam, Nigeria and China to decrease the incidence of ASF on farms.
Our food and agriculture safety framework, and specifically the WTO SPS Agreement, is effective in large part because of its focus on outcomes, rather than mandating specific practices, allowing exporters to use recognized mitigations appropriate for their circumstances, as long as the standards are met. This outcomes-based approach and associated capacity building for the public and private sector provide an important blueprint for the development of trade rules related to climate and ecosystem services, where practices will depend on specific industries and geographies, and international agreement will be needed on how to measure and recognize results.
Changing weather patterns, migration and international trade exacerbate the number and pace of threats to human, animal and plant health. Institutions like Codex, WOAH, IPPC and the WTO need to work to develop and adopt standards more quickly. The current timeline for developing new standards and guidelines averages 2-4 years, often lagging behind the broad commercialization of new products. Creative and nimble collaboration with the private sector, academia and civil society will help these institutions remain relevant and trusted to protect human, animal and plant health.
