News and Analysis • Volume 1 • Number 1 • October 2007
Sustainable land management – How can trade help, not hinder?
The role trade can play in helping address unsustainable practices in drylands is coming increasingly to the fore through its inclusion in a new ten-year plan of action under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Meanwhile, experts are still struggling to fully grasp the linkages between trade and desertification in order to craft policies that help — and certainly do not hinder — sustainable management of drylands.
Dryland agriculture and globally traded commodities take centre stage in this regard. The Doha Round offers some hope for addressing current distortions of agriculture trade, which also affect drylands negatively. As the effects of climate change start to aggravate dryland conditions, understanding these linkages becomes all the more pertinent
Dryland regions are characterised by fragile ecosystems that tend to exacerbate the challenges of sustainable agriculture. Not only is dryland agriculture a dominant economic sector in developing countries, with significant contribution to GDP (gross domestic product), it is also a primary source of employment and an essential element of livelihoods. International trade in dryland products represents a major source of export earnings, including for less advanced developing countries such as Mali or Burkina Faso, and as such, is a potential engine for economic growth and poverty alleviation. Addressing land degradation and ensuring that land can be cultivated in ways that minimise adverse impacts on fragile ecosystems is of critical importance. A holistic approach to sustainable development in the context of drylands requires a broader understanding of the socio-economic importance of agriculture in these regions.
Indeed, advancing the objectives of sustainable land management would require sustaining ecosystems and ecosystem services in drylands and even reversing the trend of degradation. At the same time, it would require ensuring that livelihoods that depend on agriculture are sustained and improved, including through improvements in the productivity of traditional crops such as maize, sorghum, millet, groundnuts and cotton, which represent primary sources of food intake, employment, income generation and export earnings. Such an approach to agriculture and sustainable land management — centred around securing livelihoods — could form the basis for the development of emerging markets for medicinal plants, gum arabic and other crops that could contribute to the diversification and expansion of economic opportunities in dryland regions.
Trade, especially at the international level, can play an important role in that context by securing and expanding income generation for people living in drylands. However, the concentration of exports in a few commodities such as cotton and groundnuts, combined with distortions in international markets and price volatility, have locked many dryland countries into a downward trend of more intensive forms of agriculture coupled with declining export revenues.
In order for trade in agricultural goods to support, rather than undermine, sustainable land management principles, it would be necessary to set in place a coherent public policy framework at the global, regional, national and local levels. Such a framework should take into account the immense distortions in agricultural trade that prevail at the global level, and the economic, social and ecological repercussions of these distortions at both the macro and micro scale. In this regard, the ongoing reform process at the WTO through the Doha Round, which is set to address distortions such as those created by production and export subsidies, could contribute to enhancing opportunities for dryland countries.
Crucial to the development of a new, coherent framework is the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. Truly sustainable solutions to the problem of land degradation can only be developed through the active and sustained involvement of a diverse set of interest groups. Indeed, the significant distortions that currently characterise the global agricultural trading system arguably result in large part from the disproportionate influence of a narrow set of stakeholders. Groups that would receive only diffuse gains from policy reform now need to be included as part of a wider dialogue on a trade, which should focus on win-win solutions for both developed and developing countries rather than the narrow pursuit of short-term gains in particular sub-sectors or geographic regions. In order for this to be effective, there is a need for increased co-operation and dialogue between a number of intergovernmental organisations, between different government ministries at the national level, and with a range of civil society stakeholders.
However, agricultural trade policy is a highly politicised issue, and progress on a public policy framework that effectively addresses trade and sustainable land management objectives cannot succeed without political commitment at the highest level. Trade negotiations are periodically held hostage to controversy over agriculture subsidies and market access in advance of national elections.
Only a concerted effort to tackle the systemic causes of agricultural trade-related land degradation can result in sustainable solutions to poverty and environmental destruction in dryland areas. The problem of land degradation in dryland areas needs to be accorded a political priority proportional to the damage it causes to rural and urban communities in both developed and developing countries.