Trade

Presentation of the working Group

The IPC Working Group on Trade, Markets and Revenues was launched on 4 December 2024. After discussing the present situation regarding trade, investment and market regulation globally and in different regions and countries, and the challenges faced by small-scale food producers in meeting costs of production, securing incomes and access to markets, participants agreed on the following priorities for the working group:

1. Reintroduction of market regulation mechanisms and tools: these are very important to protect small-scale producers and consumers from international market fluctuations. These mechanisms and tools must guarantee fair prices for producers while offering affordable prices to local consumers.
2. Strengthening territorial markets: local and regional markets anchored in territories are viable alternatives to global supply chains and corporate-dominated food-agricultural markets. Territorial markets support the local economy, provide income and healthy foods, reduce dependence on imports, and strengthen resilience in the face of crises.
3. Advocating for fair trade and investment policies and rules: trade and investment policies and rules must prioritize the needs of small-scale food producers, workers and local consumers over the interests of big businesses and corporations, and the market-centred ideology of so-called free trade agreements.
4. Empowering movements: the skills and capacities of social movements and organisations of small-scale food producers and workers to analyze and respond to the impacts of trade, investment and privatisation policies on their communities, need to be strengthened. This includes training in global trade, investment and market regulation mechanisms, documentation of impacts, and advocacy tools.
5. Identifying and documenting local and regional initiatives that have demonstrated their effectiveness in protecting small-scale food producers and community food security/sovereignty. These examples should be used to illustrate the viability of alternatives to global supply chains and corporate dominated food-agricultural systems, and convince decision-makers to support trade, investment and market regulation mechanisms that support small-scale food providers and workers.

Our Work

The WG focuses on priority issues such as public procurement for building/supplementing food stocks from small-scale food providers; impacts of global trade on territorial markets, local production, healthy diets and food import dependency; multifunctional benefits of small-scale, agroecologically oriented, local food systems in ensuring sustainable, healthy food to consumers, especially marginalized and vulnerable peoples.

Coordination

• Ibrahim Coulibaly, ROPPA, Mali – i_ibracoul@yahoo.fr

• Morgan Ody, LVC, France – morgan@viacampesina.org

Facilitation

Paola De Meo, Nora McKeon – Terra Nuova
Shalmali Guttal – Focus on the Global South

Participation in policy making processes 

FAO Committee on Commodity problems
CFS follow up on Connecting Smallholders to Markets