Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies
To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade
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3.3.3. Measures affecting production and trade
COMCEC’s (2015: 81) previous research on farmer organizations in the OIC member countries
shows that there generally exist a reasonably strong institutional capacity and a long tradition
of these institutions. But it has also been established that, in many OIC countries, majorities of
farmers do not benefit from these farmer organizations as they are not (active) participants, and
these groups of agricultural producers are typically smallholder farmers.
Irrigation, water management and soil salinity also remain to be important problems for many
OIC member countries, especially for some of the countries in the Arab and African groups.
According to COMCEC (2013), many countries are dependent on rain-fed agriculture even
though recent decades have witnessed increased levels of investments in irrigation projects. The
main policy problem is identified as the demand-based water distribution approach that does
not help developing a planned delivery system that takes into account various factors such as
climate conditions, soil salinity and water-yield relationships (COMCEC, 2013: 61).
The COMCEC Strategy referred above states that “Increasing the productivity of agriculture
sector and sustaining the food security in the COMCEC region” is a strategic objective regarding
the agriculture. Such a strategic objective is expected to increase productivity, develop the
regulatory framework and institutional capacity, and provide reliable and up-to-date data while
improving market performance and access. Training and capacity-building programmes,
encouraging entrepreneurs and farmers towards larger volumes of investment, provision of
know-how and technology, improved research services, reduction of post-harvest losses and
developing irrigation opportunities and adopting efficient techniques are proposed as necessary
actions to take for increasing productivity.
Developing resilience of agricultural sector towards future crises; increasing administrative
public capacity and effectiveness; enhancing cooperation in disaster management and climate
change; improving legal, institutional, structural and administrative frameworks; increasing
transparency of agricultural markets while improving the capacity of member states to design
agricultural trade policy, especially in the LDCs, are the actions considered to be required for the
Regulatory Framework and Institutional Capacity.
The COMCEC Strategy attracts the attention to the importance of reliable and up-to-date data
for successful agricultural trade policy and foresees to develop both the member countries’
capacity and increased collaboration with regional and international organizations.
The final action area is stated as market performance and access, and the Strategy foresees to
create and develop market institutions, to promote integrated value chain approach, to develop
the market access capacity of SMEs, especially for Low Income and the Least Developed Member
Countries' agricultural products in the intra-OIC, regional and global agricultural trade.
On the other hand, being aware of the importance of Transport and Communication Policies in
the success of the trade liberalization, the OIC member countries adopted “Improving the
functioning, effectiveness and sustainability of transport and communications in the Member
States” as another strategic objective.
A comprehensive documentation of agricultural policies that affect production and trade in the
OIC countries does not exist. A database that covers agricultural policies across countries is the
one developed by FAO. This database, FAPDA (Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis),
offers a web-based tool that allows the users to search policy tools that are used by the countries.