Short Term Vs. Long Term Agricultural Solutions in the WTO

There is heated debate in the World Trade Organization showing the clear division between the country representatives on whether or not to become more technologically based or to fix the immediate problem of agricultural products and trade without the use of technology, focusing on education.

“One country can not modernize an economy without modernizing their production of agriculture,” the representative of Israel stated. This brought up the issue that with the short term plans, they are not going to be sustainable enough to transform into long term solutions.

There are two main sides that the committee split into being either technologically based or not. There is little consensus when it comes to either accepting the integration of technology or to focus more on the educational aspect of agriculture.

One of the main concerns of the developing nations is that they are not able to keep up with technological advancements.

“Developed nations need to take into considerations of the needs and abilities of the developing countries,” the representative of Malaysia mentioned. Although a consensus would be preferably reached, the notion of developing nations not having the financial and economic stability to become technologically advanced nations has become a larger barrier between whether to be on the short or long-term side of the committee.

Specifically the FEEDS plan, which stands for Fulfillment Empowerment Enrichment Development and Special Safeguard Mechanisms, collaborates with both developed and developing nations. Nations such as Japan, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Morocco, and Botswana are just a few of the nations that have suggested the FEEDS plan to be passed.

What has to be taken into consideration are the cultural barriers that are preventing some nations from moving into a more technologically advanced agricultural state. When this is taken into consideration the movement towards a short term plan is seen as more effective. However, there are some nations that disagree with this notion and believe that long term goals and solutions need to be taken into account first.

“Without long term goals there is no future,” stated the representative for the Republic of Korea. This is not the only nation that believes this is the way to fix the issues of agriculture and free trade. Nations such as Israel and Saudi Arabia have a similar viewpoint which is why there is a clear divide in the committee.

Both sides taken on this topic are in large trying to reach the same goal but the barrier between developed and developing countries is making consensus hard to reach.