Increasing benefits to Australia from WTO agricultural trade liberalisation

Despite the failure to launch a new round of trade negotiations at Seattle, further negotiations on agriculture are scheduled as part of the in-built agenda of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In this paper it is shown that global benefits from agricultural trade liberalisation are substantial. It is desirable that Australia continues to press for a more comprehensive round of negotiations, while continuing to negotiate on agriculture. This is because the likelihood of negotiating a successful outcome for agriculture is greater under more comprehensive negotiations.