Abstract
This chapter focuses on the WTO’s Agreements on Agriculture (AoA) and other relevant regimes. It examines the impact of the rules of these Agreements by weaving together a two-tiered level of analysis based, firstly, on their direct impact on designated subsectors—particularly those of cotton and rice. Analysis of these two subsectors yield significant penetrative insights that have valid general application. The second tier of the discussion turns principally on the recognition of the fact that as more sectors of the economy are brought under neoliberal institutional control, the rule of the WTO provides the overarching contexts by which multilateral trading agreements within and between regions are structured.
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Notes
- 1.
These include principles of subsidiarity, which places premium on national jurisdiction, rather than community rules; proportionality, which emphasises the adequacy of policy measures as against any over-bearing tendencies; complementarity and progressivity, both of which dictates recognition for disparities in levels of development which may necessitate discretionary public policies in terms of investment, aid, etc., and the pacing of commitment to regional policy measures in the light of same national disparities. The other principles of regionality, solidarity and partnership and consultation relate to the commitment to collaboration, synergy, and efficient and effective implementation of regional policies. See Appendix 5 for more details.
- 2.
The relevant areas here include Articles 10.4 (dealing with the rules affecting international food aid); Article 12 (dealing with the conditions for the implementation of export restriction or prohibition; specifying the permissible grounds for adopting these measures); and Annex II (outlining the basis for public food stockholding and domestic food aid programmes) among others.
- 3.
As difficult and cumbersome as the single undertaken rule is, its apologists continue to defend it on the grounds that it enhances the prospect for the widest possible participation, allows for trade–offs, assures the endorsement and support of decision and agreements by the full members, and as a result imbues same with credibility and legitimacy. Clearly, significant progress have been made over time following the application of this rule, and the import of this point is conspicuously underlined even more by the immense diversity of issues pulled in innumerable directions by the interests of 153 countries and myriad other stake holders. Comments on the downside of this principle are however reserved for a later stage of this analysis.
- 4.
As per Article 3 of the Revised Treaty, the Member States committed to the establishment of a common market through “the adoption of a common external tariff and a common trade policy vis-à-vis third countries…” (ECOWAS, 1993).
- 5.
West and Central Africa constitute very significant receptors of EU origin poultry and dairy products (Aprodev, 2006).
- 6.
They consist largely of de-boned and frozen turkey, chicken wings, necks, drumstick, e.t.c.; parts which on the shelves of western supermarkets have little or no patronage. The issue here is largely one not of food safety per se but of a standard below average consumer preferences (Aprodev, 2006: 16).
- 7.
These include the Kaduna textiles Ltd, The Arewa Textiles, the United Nigeria Textiles Ltd, and Nortex Ltd.
- 8.
It needs be pointed out here that the reference to ‘new’ trajectory is not intended to be construed as there been an emergence of a qualitatively different mode of exploitation and capital accumulation in the post-colonial West African agricultural system. Rather we use ‘new’ to imply novel mechanisms and vistas by which, as the crisis of neoliberal capitalism looms, exploitation is intensified and appropriation assured.
- 9.
Policy targets have included among others things considerations for local equity restrictions, technology transfer, manufacturing, trade balancing, export performance, foreign exchange restrictions, remittance restrictions, licensing requirements and employment restrictions.
- 10.
TRIMs that are inconsistent with the obligation of national treatment provided for in paragraph 4 of Article III of GATT 1994 include those which are mandatory or enforceable under domestic law or under administrative rulings, or compliance with which is necessary to obtain an advantage, and which require:
-
a.
the purchase or use by an enterprise of products of domestic origin or from any domestic source, whether specified in terms of particular products, in terms of volume or value of products, or in terms of a proportion of volume or value of its local production; or
-
b.
that an enterprise’s purchases or use of imported products be limited to an amount related to the volume or value of local products that it exports.
TRIMs that are inconsistent with the obligation of general elimination of quantitative restrictions provided for in paragraph 1 of Article XI of GATT 1994 include those which are mandatory or enforceable under domestic law or under administrative rulings, or compliance with which is necessary to obtain an advantage, and which restrict:
-
i.
the importation by an enterprise of products used in or related to its local production, generally or to an amount related to the volume or value of local production that it exports;
-
ii.
the importation by an enterprise of products used in or related to its local production by restricting its access to foreign exchange to an amount related to the foreign exchange inflows attributable to the enterprise; or
-
iii.
the exportation or sale for export by an enterprise of products, whether specified in terms of particular products, in terms of volume or value of products, or in terms of a proportion of volume or value of its local production.
-
a.
- 11.
The ‘battle’ of Seattle, among many other leading instances of successful anti-globalisation protests comes readily to mind. Beyond these however, the prospect for achieving the much needed consensus was made intractable by the robust opposition from the develo** countries to a myriad of provisions seeking the regulation of investment including the prohibition of export performance, transfer of technology requirements, the rules governing the entry or treatment of foreign investment, provision of export incentives, prohibiting measures exceeding the local content requirements etc.
- 12.
Equally important, it should be added here that within the WTO itself, attempts to transcend the TRIMS and GATS have been continuing resulting in the incorporation of investment issues in the Doha Development Rounds with aim to ‘secure transparent, stable and predictable conditions contributing to the expansion of trade (WTO, Doha Mandate, Art. 20).
- 13.
The point must be made also that a huge and increasing level of this form of investment is now increasingly originating from the south as well. Such that under the auspices of South-South collaboration, countries like China, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan etc., have made significant investment in agriculture in Africa.
- 14.
This has been alluded to earlier. It was shown to be evidenced by contract farming and plantation-work earnings and other off-farm income earned from off-season work in other sectors of the economy.
- 15.
For more details in specific reference to West Africa see Stamm (2004: 670) who noted inter alia that: ‘The Bank’s last policy statement on land reform dates back to 1975. It recommended land titling in order to promote private freehold tenure favouring the modernisation of agriculture by the adoption of new technologies. Since then, the Bank’s position is said to have evolved considerably, whereas actually it has become more and more contradictory. While two of its major publications, Sub-Saharan Africa: from crisis to sustainable growth (1989) and Adjustment in Africa (1994), echoed to a large extent the principles of the 1975 Policy Paper, the World Development Report, 1992 took a more nuanced position. It attributed to so-called customary land right systems a high degree of efficiency and dynamism, providing a sufficient level of incentives to make investments.
- 16.
Admittedly, competition for land is also exacerbated as it is by the burgeoning population growth and migratory patterns in West Africa.
- 17.
Secondary rights or derived rights to land and natural resources according to the UN-HABITAT/Global Land Tool network (2008: 6) are non-definitive transfers of use rights in favour of someone outside the family group. Such transfers can include rental arrangements, sharecrop** or indigenous forms of loans, mortgage or pledge. Secondary rights are widespread throughout West Africa, and very important for poorer groups. Because they are dependent on social relations, these rights are diverse, dynamic and subject to constant change and evolution.
- 18.
In this wise regionalism, invariably, are systems of trade preferences wherefore member states confer advantages and privileges on one another to the exclusion of third parties.
- 19.
The Enabling Clause also allows the creation of Preferential Trading Arrangements (PTAs) between develo** countries in instances which fall short of full FTAs or CUs. Further it allows partial preferences for specific goods.
- 20.
The Least Developed Countries, 13 of which are in the ECOWAS region, are however exempt from this requirement to grant the EU reciprocal access to their economies under a Special General Preference Scheme.
- 21.
By global extrapolations, this amounts to reducing the number of the under-nourished in the develo** world by 12–17%, or 100–150 million people in practical terms (FAO, 2011).
- 22.
In Nigeria, farms and markets were drawn from South-West, North-central; for Ghana farms in the outskirts of Kumasi and Accra were visited.
- 23.
This profiling is based on observation in the course of field work conducted in Nigeria and Ghana. Women have become more and more important as field labourers on the growing number of contract farms. Evidence from existing secondary data supports the conclusion that this is also representative of what obtains across the other countries in the region.
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Ichimi, G.S. (2024). The WTO, ECOWAS and the Prospects for Food Security in West Africa. In: The World Trade Organization and Food Security in West Africa. Contemporary African Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53881-0_6
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