Global food trade

Few issues animate debate about the global food system as much as the role of international trade and, in particular, that of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Indeed, the WTO is a subject that polarizes debate among food scholars and activists. Some scholars see the WTO as imperfect but necessary to ensure a transparent and rule-based system to manage international food trade that is preferable to the exercise of unilateral raw power by governments. For others, the WTO represents the apex of neoliberal globalization and they regard it as an institution that has entrenched corporate interests and control over the food system at the expense of public interests. For many food activists, in particular, the WTO became a principal target for mass public protests; it also galvanized the transnational food sovereignty movement that has long sought to get the WTO “out of agriculture”.