Despite the recorded high in total global population and food production there are 800 million people world-wide suffering from hunger. One of the critical limiting factors for the paradoxical mismatch of supply and demand in food is barriers to international trade. For more than a decade, despite the tremendous amount of resources and time spent by WTO members, negotiations in agriculture trade have been to no avail.

To further advance trade negotiations, perhaps trade negotiators – be they in WTO, bilateral or regional platforms – could borrow a page from the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement, where all Parties have committed to make the agriculture sector the Early Harvest Package, based on the comparative advantages of ASEAN and China. If trade policy makers are serious about making real progress in international trade, especially when there is increasing trade protectionism since 2007/2008, then bold new approaches should be introduced.

… Christopher Lim is Senior Fellow in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman and Vincent Mack is Associate Research Fellow in the Centre for Non-traditional Security (NTS) Studies, both at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This is part of a series on WAF 2017.