T

he government is set to propose that the nation'€™s staple food be included in public stockholding and be protected by a special safeguard mechanism. The proposal is set to be discussed at the next World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting, a senior official from the Trade Ministry has said.

Trade Ministry director general for international trade cooperation Bachrul Chairi said recently that Indonesia would propose rice for a public stockholding scheme and for a special safeguard mechanism (SSM) for agricultural products.

'€œFor the public stockholding, we'€™ll include rice. For SSM, we'€™ll propose 12 agricultural products and plantation commodities, including rice,'€ he said.

Agricultural and plantation products like crude palm oil (CPO), beans and chili were among the other commodities that the government planned to propose for the SSM, he went on to say.

Public stockholding refers to the policy of developing nations buying agricultural products from their farmers and then stockpiling them to ensure national food security.

The scheme is currently allowed under the WTO system, but it is limited to only 10 percent of total crops.

The SSM, meanwhile, is meant to provide an easier mechanism for developing countries to implement safeguard measures in the form of import duties for certain agricultural products. The SSM may be carried out if there are unusual import volumes or prices of certain commodities move outside of a normal bracket.

Both public stockholding and SSM were originally proposed by developing nations in former WTO negotiations.

During a WTO ministerial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, that lasted from Dec. 15 to Dec. 19, all member nations agreed to acknowledge both public stockholding and the SSM as part of what is called the Nairobi Package.

However, details of the two mechanisms will be further negotiated in a special session at the WTO'€™s upcoming committee on agriculture.

Bachrul said that another significant achievement reached at the Nairobi meeting was the agreement on export competition, in which developed nations would immediately remove export subsidies on agriculture and developing nations would do the same by 2018, with developed nations aiming for reductions on tariffs on their products entering into developing nations.

Export subsidies on agricultural products, both direct and indirect, have been commonly used for developed nations like the United States to help its farmers.

Developing nations like Indonesia, meanwhile, have mostly only provided domestic subsidies '€”not export subsidies for local farmers in the form of fertilizers and fuel subsidies.

Thomas Darmawan, chairman of the fishery division at the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo), said that the elimination of export subsidies would create fairer competition between the export commodities of developed and developing nations.

'€œDomestically, the elimination of export subsidies will push Indonesia to cut its high-cost economy and keep the price of its fishery products competitive,'€ he said.

Bachrul argued that the Nairobi Package had become a winning model for both developed and developing nations.

While developed nations were still adamant in their stance not to continue the Doha Development Agenda talks at the WTO meeting in Nairobi, the agreement on agricultural matters '€” separated from the Doha talks constituted a significant form of progress at the WTO.

'€” JP/Khoirul Amin