Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies
To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade
2
 The results from an online survey on intra-OIC agricultural trade policies indicate that
agricultural trade is seen as an important driver of overall development and food
security. Three factors that are emphasized more by the survey participants as among
the ones adversely affecting agricultural trade flows are (i) the very poor status of
marketing knowledge and information, (ii) the very poor status of financial resources,
and (iii) the very poor status of technical adaptability of producers. The standardization
of the products is also seen as a problem area. Survey results also confirm Saudi Arabia’s
and Turkey’s agricultural import and export hub roles within the OIC, respectively.
These two countries are accompanied by non-OIC partners Russia, Germany and China
both for the current and for the future agricultural trade relationships.
 An observation worth mentioning in the study concerns the significance of smallholder
farming practices across the OIC. The scale problem in agriculture prevents large
segments of the rural population from reaping the benefits of productivity advantages
associated with larger production scales, including international competitiveness in
many OIC countries. Access to credit and information is particularly challenging for
smallholders. Cost disadvantages, barriers against modernization, and other supply
chain issues act as significant barriers to access to global markets (particularly to global
markets for products in the higher end of value chains).
 Another result that emerged out of the field visits completed in three case study
countries (the Gambia, Morocco and Turkey) is that there is a common understanding
among stakeholders from different member countries to the effect that cooperation and
coordination among OIC member countries in the area of agricultural trade would be
mutually (even multilaterally) beneficial.
 The review and analysis also indicate that many OIC countries have problems
concerning data availability and data reliability in the realm of agricultural trade flows
and agricultural trade policy measures (including both the tariff rates and the NTMs).
More specifically, commonly referenced international databases that collect and publish
statistics on tariff rates and NTMs at product division and product levels do not cover
the statistics of most recent years for many OIC countries.
Building on these results, the following policy recommendations are formulated to help promote
intra-OIC agricultural trade in the near future.
 The main policy recommendation that would promote intra-OIC trade in agricultural
products is the establishment of Free Trade Areas first at the three regional groups level
and then for the entire OIC. As explained in detail in Chapter 5, multiple membership to
different regional trade agreements result in crisscrossing, creating the “spaghetti bowl”
phenomenon signaled by Bhagwati (1995). This has the effect of creating discriminating
high tariffs applied by OIC member countries to others which are excluded from the
existing regional trade agreements with non-OIC countries. One should keep in mind
that Article XXIV of GATT opens the way to FTAs or customs unions, at the condition of
non-discrimination and in line with the GATT utmost aim of liberalizing trade at global
scale. A closer look on the existing agreements and their exceptions / exclusions /
sensitivities shows that they are far from achieving that aim and should not be a barrier
to new, larger integration efforts which will require in any case the approval of the
related WTO committees (UNCTAD 2016). It should be noted that difficulties associated
with the rules of origin could be overcome by the four basic principles of the WTO’s