ECUDAR

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Delegate Name: Chen Yujing

Delegate School: No.1 High School Attached to Central China Normal University

Country: Ecuador

Committee: World Trade Organization  

Topic: Agriculture Trade Reform




Agriculture has long been a hot issue on an international scale. Historically, due to political sensitivity, agriculture trade has been remaining anarchic. In Nov. 2001, members of the WTO convened in Doha, Qatar where they crafted the Doha Development Agenda (DAA) which would become the 9th round of trade negotiations. However the talks were postponed in 2003 and till now there were not any resolutions, suggesting a potential failure in the overall Doha Round of negotiations. Ecuador was involved in the Doha Round and indeed hoped to reach an agreement in the negotiation.




Members of WTO are arguing for the genetically modified organisms (GMO). The United States, along with twelve other agricultural exporting nations are calling on EU the repeal its five-year moratorium on GMO and argue that WTO agreements specifically forbid non-tariff barriers to food imports. In this aspect, Ecuador has strict rules in GMO, resisting prohibited GM seed and crop. The Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa and the president of the Constituent Assembly, Alberto Acosta drafted a text on Food Sovereignty, claiming that the state will regulate the use and development of biotechnology, as well as its testing, use and commercialization under strict bio-safety standards.




Only the Uruguay Round had a specific agreement on agriculture, and none so far have included comprehensive deals on services and intellectual property. In the Uruguay round agreement, the results of the negotiations provide a framework for the long-term reform of agricultural trade and domestic policies over the years to come. It makes a decisive move towards the objective of increased market orientation in agricultural trade. In the area of market access, non-tariff border measures are replaced by tariffs that provide substantially the same level of protection. Members countries has signed the regulation which aim at improving agriculture by concerning in developing countries and least-developed countries, encouraging less trade-distorting domestic support policies to maintain the rural economy and reducing 24per cent in the case of developing countries and 24 percent in the case of developing countries.




Ecuador, the world’s largest banana producer, is aware of the problems of agriculture, hence proposing following solutions:

Demanding an international standard of subsidy reduction for all member countries of WTO. It should include the different amount of reduction of tariff to different countries. For developing countries like Ecuador, the reduction of tariff should be less than those of developed countries for the protection of domestic protection.


Urging Developed countries, especially the US, to decrease the exportation subsidy in order to keep the agricultural trade balance of the whole world. Under the circumstance of food shortage, this action could help the agricultural transaction across countries.

Expecting developing countries to lower the import tariff so that domestic farmers have more benefit and more motivation to work.

Expecting to establish a faculty to research in GMO and ensure GMO’s availability to human beings.