Trade and environment briefings: sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture emphasises efficient and productive uses of resources. This policy brief provides evidence that sustainable agricultural production systems present viable alternatives to existing farming practices. <br /><br />The paper indicates that policies promoting greener and sustainable agriculture offer multiple economic, social and environmental benefits, including a number of trade opportunities. However, there are some challenges, such as the increasing demand for food, and the increasing global water stress, which will require the adoption of practices that enhance water-use efficiencies.<br /><br />The author concludes that a transformation of the current predominant paradigm &ndash; which is based on high levels of input against a backdrop of shrinking resources &ndash; is urgently needed. This urgency stems from the must to provide nutrition to a growing population on a sustainable basis. <br /><br />The document finds that the successful conclusion of the ongoing WTO Doha Round (DR) could offer a number of potential opportunities to support the greening of the agricultural sector; such DR conclusion is expected to include increasing disciplines on subsidies and enhancing access for agricultural products in developed countries&rsquo; markets. <br /><br />Furthermore, the paper states that domestic and international efforts could focus on the following:<br /> the removal of energy subsidies would have a positive impact on the efficient use of inputs in the agricultural production process international standards and labeling schemes could be used as opportunities to document and promote good practices by developing country producers investment in green agriculture could provide improvements, for instance, in developing countries&rsquo; storage and transport infrastructure - and thus reduce post-harvest loss in this sense, green banks and micro-credit programmes for farmers could be established offering small &ldquo;green&rdquo; loans to buy organic inputs or pay for organic certification, among others similarly, aid-for-trade, and similar trade facilitation initiatives, can be an important tool in terms of capacity-building at all stages of supply chains