World Trade Organization and its Implication for the Agricultural Sector of Less Developed
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Date
2011-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The World Trade Organization (WTO) which was established in 1995 is a
landmark development in the history of international trade in agriculture. Before
its establishment, trade in agriculture has been distorted and not liberalized. But
due to the coming into effect of the Uruguay round Agreement on Agriculture
(AOA), trade in agriculture has been fully liberalized. However, despite its
establishment one could observe several drawbacks in fully realizing the benefit
from being part of it. This is particularly so with the Less Developed Countries
(LDCs) who have been caught between the need for developing their agricultural
and industrial base on the one hand and unable to secure the benefits from their
membership on the other hand. The central objective of the study, therefore, is to
analyze the implications of WTO for the agricultural sector on selected less
developed countries and to draw lessons for Ethiopia.
The research was undertaken by raising some guiding questions such as Does
membership to the WTO benefit the agricultural sector of LDCs? What lessons
Ethiopia can learn from the experience of LDCs? To understand the extent to
which membership in the WTO have implications for LDCs, the study employed
qualitative approach. In order to do that, data from the experience of Nepal and
Uganda has been gathered from primary and secondary sources and analyzed.
The finding of the study reveals that under the existence of internal and external
factors membership in the WTO could not benefit the agriculture sector of LDCs.
Internally, lack of surplus products, diversification, infrastructure, quality
product, technology and sufficient capital are the major factors that hinder the
benefit of being a membership. Along with these, the study identified that there are
external factors, like domestic support, export subsidy, tariff and non-tariff
barriers which are practiced in developed countries that could affect the benefit of
membership. The study concludes that Ethiopia which has the same agricultural
context with other LDCs could face the same problem
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International Relation