Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies
To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade
45
Agreement on Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Measures and the Agreement on Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT), at the WTO level. Although countries are free to introduce such
regulations to protect consumers, they need to be based on scientific grounds and not a
concealed protectionist tool. Finally, the most difficult characteristic of NTMs is that they cannot
be converted to a common numerical measure since the related regulations are not exactly
comparable from one product or measure to another (COMCEC, 2018b).
This section will provide an overview of the existing agricultural trade policy measures in OIC
member countries. Keeping in mind that OIC member countries’ agricultural exports grew at an
average annual rate of 4.2% during the period 2008-2016 versus 4.3% of growth of their
imports, there is necessity to revise the trade policy measures in place against agricultural trade
deficit, since average annual growth rate of the non-OIC countries’ agricultural exports and
imports has been 2.2% and 2.1% respectively. Agricultural trade deficit of OIC member
countries is increasing to the benefit of non-OIC countries, thus increasing agricultural trade
surplus in non-OIC countries. Considering agriculture’s positive impact on economic growth
being particularly crucial for OIC member countries still at the least developed category or low-
income levels, using effective trade policy measures is of utmost importance within OIC. While
increasing exports by providing necessary support mechanisms to producers for better and
diversified products along with marketing and financing help, protection against unfair
practices of developed and developing countries is today crucial for a sustainable agriculture
and food security. Lots of big agricultural producers which are competing with OIC member
countries in international markets use NTMs to limit their imports, while relying on heavy state
production incentives to increase their exports. This is one of the major factors contributing to
increasing OIC trade deficit and, hence, to increasing non-OIC trade surplus.
A special case at the WTO level is worth mentioning here since it is the request by four OIC
member countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, known as the Cotton Four or C-
4. The request consists of cuts in domestic support, tariffs and export subsidies for cotton. The
C-4, for which cotton accounted for more than half of the agricultural export revenues in 2017,
contributed to the establishment of a “cotton initiative” within the framework of theWTO during
the CancunMinisterial Conference in 2003. At the Bali Ministerial Conference in December 2013,
theWTOmembers adopted the Bali Ministerial Decision on Cotton inwhich they restated earlier
commitments “to address cotton ambitiously, expeditiously and specifically, within the
agriculture negotiations.” (ICTSD, 2014). In this context, ministers decided to enhance
transparency and monitoring in relation to the trade-related aspects of cotton.
The fact that United States presented a new paper9 for cotton on September 2018 is a clear
evidence of the importance of cotton not only for C-4 but for many other countries to begin with
the US, the top one global cotton exporter and leading by a difference of 3.5 fold the second
biggest exporter India. In June 2018, the WTO organized a Symposium on the Agriculture Policy
Landscape during which specific discussions on cotton were held and resulted in identifying the
importance of market-oriented trade as a means to improve cotton farmers' welfare globally.
Policies promoting competition from the synthetic fiber market, NTMs, and the need to develop
global value chains together with the need of investment in the cotton sector were determined
as issues restraining cotton farmers’ welfare.