At the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali, Ministers agreed to prepare a “clearly defined” work programme on the remaining Doha Development Agenda (DDA) issues. However, the global agricultural trade landscape has evolved significantly since negotiations froze in 2008 – and even more so since Doha was launched in 2001. As WTO Members start crafting the contours of a possible post-Bali agenda, developing a sound understanding of this new global reality and its implications for future multilateral disciplines in agriculture is critical.

This information note summarises some of the findings of the ICTSD e-book “Tackling Agriculture in the Post-Bali Context: A Collection of Short Essays”, edited by Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, Christophe Bellmann and Jonathan Hepburn. The book builds on the most recent analysis of global trends and domestic policy reforms to inform negotiations on a post-Bali agricultural trade agenda. It features a series of concise, non-technical and solution-oriented papers by leading experts and thinkers, covering systematically all elements of the agricultural negotiations on market access, domestic support and export competition.