Agriculture And Food Security Publications and Resources

The Hijacking of the Development Debate - How Friedman and Sachs Got It Wrong
August 1, 2025 - Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, World Policy Journal
Just a half decade after protests by citizen groups in Latin America and elsewhere discredited two decades of market-oriented neoliberal dogma, Friedman and Sachs have narrowed the debate with simplistic slogans of “more aid” and “more trade.” They have done so by putting forward myths about the poor, economic development, and the global economy.  Read publication...

Solidarity Economics
April 27, 2025 - Ethan Miller, Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) Collective
Strategies for Building New Economies From the Bottom-Up and the Inside-Out  Read publication...

Brazil and the Difficult Path to Multilateralism
March 8, 2025 - Raul Zibechi, International Relations Center - America's Program
Brazil's rise as a regional and world power that champions multilateralism is being met with domestic and international obstacles. In addition to the resistance of the United States, Brazil has left a bitter taste in the mouth of its own neighbors who feel its steamroller-like advances are creating a new disequilibrium on the subcontinent. The domestic problems of Brazil - a country that has won "the world championship of inequality" - are spilling over as the country aspires to become a major player on the international scene. Raúl Zibechi, a member of the editorial board of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, is a professor and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina and adviser to several grassroots organizations. He is a monthly contributor to the IRC Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org).  Read publication...

WTO Ruling on Genetically Engineered Crops Would Override International, National and Local Protections
February 7, 2025 - Institute for Ag and Trade Policy
Ruling Favors U.S. Biotech Companies Over Precautionary Regulation  Read publication...

China Copes with Globalization - a mixed review
January 15, 2025 - Dale Wen, Visiting Scholar, International Forum on Globalization
This primer intends to serve as a briefing on the implications of China’s evolving role in the global economy and help build bridges and greater understanding between emerging social movements in China and international civil society.  Read publication...

The Doha Deception Round: a recipe for unemployment
December 2, 2024 - {Civil Society signatories]
Over a hundred social movements, trade unions and NGOs release a statement on the employment and unemployment effects of the present WTO negotiations.  Read publication...

Why the EU and the and the USA must reform their subsidies, or pay the price
November 30, 2024 - Oxfam International
Oxfam releases a new paper that shows that a variety of US & EU agriculture subsidies are likely violating WTO rules and are vulnerable to challenge... For the US and EU, the message is that the status quo is not be defensible; morally or legally. US & EU farm programs risk being picked apart by legal challenges. To prevent this unhappy scenario, rich countries must dig much deeper to reform farm subsidies and offer more opportunity to developing countries. Otherwise, the Doha Round will offer little “development” and may not succeed. What is on the negotiating table thus far is not enough.  Read publication...

Doha Round’s Development Impacts: Shrinking Gains and Real Costs
October 1, 2024 - Timothy A. Wise and Kevin P. Gallagher, RIS Policy Briefs
RIS, the India-based Research and Information System for Developing Countries, has published a policy brief by GDAE's Tim Wise and Kevin Gallagher analyzing the limited gains projected for developing countries from further WTO agreements and highlighting some of the hidden costs of WTO measures.  Read publication...

Planting the Rights Seed: A human rights perspective on agriculture trade and the WTO
November 28, 2024 - 3 D
This publication is the first in a series designed to analyse the World Trade organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture from a human rights perspective. As a backgrounder it focuses on the main characteristics of agricultural trade, and the relevant global rules. It points out what the main human rights concerns are, and suggests some possible actions human rights advocates can undertake. Future publications in this series will focus on specific issues in the agriculture trade negociations.  Read publication...

Sorting Out the DDA End Process
June 20, 2025 - Trade Reports International Group, Washington Trade Daily
Volume 14, Number 121 Friday, June 20, 2025 Geneva – A dozen capital-based senior trade officials today will be asked by the European Union to provide some indication as to how far they can go in advancing all the pillars of the Doha Development Agenda work program  Read publication...

Landless Peasants March in Brazil, Build a new Road by Walking
May 19, 2025 - Deborah James, Common Dreams
On May 17th, Brazilian news media reported that 50 people were injured as landless peasants clashed with police. Like our corporate media in the U.S., this focus overshadowed the real story; that 12,000 poor landless peasants had recently completed a Herculean 150 mile, 17 day-long march across the country to raise awareness about the crucial need for land reform in Brazil.  Read publication...

World Social Forum Funder Delegation Report
March 1, 2025 - Mark Randazzo, Funders Network on Trade and Globalization
Excerpts from a report of FNTG's funder delegation to the WSF 2005.  Read publication...

Integrating Human Rights into the Future of Agriculture Trade Policy
January 3, 2025
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Practical Guide to the WTO
December 10, 2024
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The WTO in 2004: a year in review
December 16, 2024 - Alexandra Strickner and Carin Smaller, Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy
A comprehensive overview from IATP's Trade Information Project in Geneva, including negotiations and challenges for 2005.  Read publication...

Agriculture framework, an asymmetric Doha-minus
July 20, 2025 - Chakravarthi Raghavan, South-North Development Monitor
Published in SUNS, Geneva, 20 July 2025 The draft framework text, Job(04)/96, issued on 16 July by General Council chair Shotaro Oshima and WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, aimed at restarting the stalled WTO negotiations, is a "Doha-minus", both overall and in the agriculture annex.  Read publication...

The Paradox of Agricultural Subsidies
February 24, 2025 - Timothy A. Wise, Global Development and Environment Institute
Are US farm subsidies responsible for the alleged “dumping” of US corn in Mexico at prices below US farmers’ costs of production? This new study suggests that agricultural dumping is indeed occurring, but Mexico’s small-scale farmers are unlikely to benefit much from subsidy reductions in the United States unless there is a more sweeping reform of US farm policy.  Read publication...

A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All
February 24, 2025 - World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, International Labour Organization (ILO)
Globalization can and must change, says a new, groundbreaking report presented today to the International Labour Organization (ILO) urging that building a fair and inclusive globalization become a worldwide priority. This report, issued by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, calls for an "urgent rethink" of current policies and institutions of global governance.  Read publication...

Sustainable Industrial Development: The Performance of Mexico’s FDI-Led Strategy
February 19, 2025 - Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky, Global Development and Environment Institute/Tufts University
A new policy report, and a short policy brief that concisely summarizes the larger report, provide an economic analysis of the industrial development model promoted by Mexico, and draws out lessons for Mexican development, the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations, and the Doha Development Round.  Read publication...

Human Development Report 2003
July 9, 2025 - UN Development Programme
The range of human development in the world is vast and uneven, with astounding progress in some areas amidst stagnation and dismal decline in others. Balance and stability in the world will require the commitment of all nations, rich and poor, and a global development compact to extend the wealth of possibilities to all people.  Read publication...

NAFTA's Untold Stories: Mexico's Response to North American Integration
June 10, 2025 - Timothy A. Wise, Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center
Although some policymakers still point to Mexico as a success story, there is a growing consensus that its free trade experiment has not lived up to expectations. Results of nine case studies published in the book Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico illustrate implications for a host of new trade agreements now under consideration.  Read publication...

Commodity System Challenges: moving sustainability into the mainstream of natural resource economies.
April 1, 2025 - Sustainability Institute
A new Sustainability Institute report provides a map of the structures that produce the behavior common to many natural resource economies — ever-increasing production leading to the traps of over-harvest, pollution, and community decline. This paper combines results of Sustainability Institute research on US corn and forest systems with insights from other commodity management systems.  Read publication...

Communities and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
February 7, 2025 - Antonio La VIna, World Resources Institute
This working paper provides an overview of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, an international agreement expected to come into force by the end of 2003, with an emphasis on its implications and significance for poor communities worldwide. Because of its subject matter – the regulation of the transboundary movement (export and import) of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from one country to another, the Protocol could have an enormous impact on the food, livelihood and environmental security of communities in both developed and developing countries. This working paper analyzes the key challenges raised by modern biotechnology, the benefits and risks the technology poses to communities, and the opportunities for maximizing benefits and minimizing risks that are provided by the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.  Read publication...

Water Justice for All
March 31, 2025 - Friends of the Earth International
Major new publication from Friends of the Earth International, in pdf format.  Read publication...

Africa Policy for a new Era: Ending Segregation in U.S. Foreign Relations
January 29, 2025 - Africa Action
Founded in xxxAfrica Action is the oldest advocacy organization on African affairs in the U.S. This document, produced by defines an agenda for U.S. Africa policy for a new era. It provides an overview of current challenges and offers recommendations for U.S. policy on priority issues and areas. It affirms Africa ’s importance to the U.S. and outlines what is required of the U.S. to engage collaboratively and effectively with its African partners.  Read publication...

From Doha to Cancun: The WTO Trade Negotiations and Communties
August 31, 2024 - Antonio la Vina and Vicente Paolo Yu III, World Resources Institute
This working paper gives an overview of the results of the Fourth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in Doha, Qatar, held 9 to 14 November 2001. It looks at the political context of the ministerial meeting, identifies the key actors and stakeholders in the WTO processes, and provides an analysis of the issues being negotiated under the so-called “Doha Development Round”.  Read publication...

The Emerging Global Regime on Genetic Resources and Local Communities
August 31, 2024 - Antonio La VIna, World Resources Institute
This briefing paper gives an overview of the emerging global regime on genetic resources, with a special emphasis on its implications for local and impoverished communities worldwide.  Read publication...

Porto Alegre & Beyond: Following up on the World Social Forum
November 22, 2024 - Interhemispheric Resource Center
The growing profile of citizen-based agendas in global affairs represents one of the most promising developments in the international arena. This "Citizen Action in the Americas Discussion Paper" reports on an annual gathering that has become a prominent space for citizens' movements to meet and develop strategies for a more hopeful future: the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.  Read publication...

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
September 1, 2024 - U.S. Government
The National Security Strategy was issued by the White House in September.  Read publication...

Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy
October 10, 2024 - Edited by Robin Broad, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Global Backlash is the first book to move beyond the monolithic portrayal of the globalization protests that have escalated since Seattle and are not likely to abate soon.  Read publication...

Giving Away the Farm: The 2002 Farm Bill
September 25, 2024 - Anuradha Mittal, Institute for Food and Development Policy
The bill's potential for good pales in comparison to the damage it will do. Overall, the new bill fails the nation's family farmers, consumers, taxpayers, and environment. It further destabilizes family farmers and rural communities around the world.  Read publication...

Living Economies
August 29, 2024 - YES! magazine
The fall issue of YES! magazine brings alive alternatives to what lead author David Korten calls the global suicide economy. This issue of YES! features stories on how communities from Brazil to Appalachia, from Argentina to Vermont are building living economies that value life and community.  Read publication...

African Civil Society Declaration on NEPAD
July 8, 2025
African civil society organizations declare their resistance to the "New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development" (Nepad), and push for demands that they think better address development, democracy, human rights and peace in Africa.  Read publication...

Update on Citizens’ Campaigns on the FTAA
July 3, 2025 - Karen Hansen-Kuhn, ART/DGAP
Representatives of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) and other social movements met recently in Quito, Ecuador for the purpose of exchanging information on their respective popular-education campaigns on the potential impacts of and alternatives to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). They also discussed the coordination of those campaigns at the hemispheric level and developed plans around a major civil-society forum to be held parallel to the official meeting of trade ministers on the FTAA in late October.  Read publication...

Social Movements and Regional Integration in the Americas
June 18, 2025 - Beverly Bell, Center for Economic Justice
This paper explores the status of cross-border social movements in the Americas in an era of globalization.  Read publication...

The Policy Roots of Economic Crisis and Poverty
May 21, 2025 - Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN)
A multi-country participatory assessment based on the results of a joint World Bank/Civil Society/Government Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initaitive (SAPRI) and the Citizen's Assessment of Structural Adjustment (CASA)  Read publication...

Managing the Invisible Hand - Markets, Farmers and International Trade
April 1, 2025 - Sophia Murphy, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
The current global agriculture trade agreement will not succeed in helping farmers and broad-based economic development until it addresses market power by transnational corporations, finds a new report released today by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.  Read publication...