The WFO delegation contributed farmers’ views and priorities to discussions on input-market disruption, agricultural services and food safety rules.

Trade rules are negotiated far from farms, but the decisions taken in negotiating rooms affect which inputs farmers can access, which requirements they must meet, which markets they can reach, and how they can plan production and investment.

This connection between global trade policy and farming realities guided the participation of the World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO) and its delegates in the 2026 WTO Public Forum, held in Geneva from 15 to 17 September.

The WFO delegation brought together representatives of farmers’ organisations working in very different markets and production systems. Their experiences were not identical, but they pointed to a common need for trade policies that are fair, transparent, predictable and grounded in farming realities.

Trade disruption from the farm

The WFO-led session “Ensuring Global Food Security amid Trade Disruptions” examined how instability in energy, fertiliser, feed, and transport markets propagates through supply chains and reaches individual farms.

Farmers’ representatives from Brazil, Canada and Norway joined experts from FAO and the Swiss feed sector to discuss how rising costs and uncertain supplies affect sourcing, investment and production decisions, from higher freight and insurance costs to less predictable access to fertiliser and feed materials.

The discussion also addressed the relationship between domestic production and international trade. Countries need viable agricultural sectors, but few can produce everything they require. Diversified sources of supply and functioning trade routes remain important when a crisis disrupts one market or transport corridor.

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The policy questions behind these disruptions were taken up in a closed-door WFO–WTO roundtable that brought WFO members together with WTO chairs and senior officials working on agriculture, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and trade-related support for developing countries.

For WFO, fairer and more predictable trading conditions require progress in the agriculture negotiations following MC14, including domestic support, market access, export restrictions, public stockholding for food security purposes, and special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed countries.

WFO called for food safety and sanitary and phytosanitary measures that protect human, animal and plant health, are based on international standards and do not create unjustified trade barriers. It also raised the risk that greater market access could expose developing and least developed countries to lower-quality food.

Input markets brought the dialogue back to immediate decisions on farms. When fertiliser, fuel or feed becomes unavailable or unaffordable, farmers may delay purchases, reduce use or change what they plan to produce. WFO asked how closer cooperation between the WTO, farmers’ organisations and other actors could improve transparency and predictability in these markets.

Across these areas, WFO stressed that farmers and their organisations should be involved not only when trade policies are discussed, but also during their design, implementation and monitoring.

The services that make agricultural trade possible

Agricultural trade depends on more than the products moving across borders. Trade statistics capture far less about the services that enable farmers to produce, meet requirements, and reach those markets in the first place.

This gap was the focus of the FAO-led session “Bridging the Data Gap in Trade in Agricultural Services“. Isadora Barbosa Souza, Senior International Affairs Advisor at CNA Brasil and a member of the WFO Working Group on International Trade, brought this perspective of farmers and farmers’ organisations.

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Agriculture relies on research, technical advice, training, logistics, laboratory testing, digital platforms, traceability and certification. These services can affect productivity and market access as much as physical infrastructure does, but many are provided through public programmes, cooperatives, or combined packages that are difficult to identify in conventional trade data.

Drawing on the CNA/Senar system, Souza explained how professional training, technical assistance and distance-learning services turn information into support that farmers can use in their daily decisions. She also used traceability as an example: what appears to be a requirement attached to a final product, in practice, depends on geolocation, monitoring, data management, auditing, certification, and technical assistance.

Simply knowing that a service provider exists does not indicate whether farmers in remote areas can afford or use the service. Better measures should therefore cover access, affordability, geographical reach, effective use, and economic value. This would give policymakers a clearer picture of where services strengthen competitiveness and where their cost or limited availability risks excluding farmers from markets.

When standards differ between markets

Farmers can meet a food safety requirement in one market and still find that the same product does not comply with the rules in another. Different residue limits, testing procedures, or certification requirements may demand changes to production and incur additional costs before a product can be sold.

WFO Secretary General Andrea Porro addressed this problem during a closed-door roundtable organised by CropLife International, “Trade Predictability at Risk: How Diverging Pesticide and Food Safety Rules Are Reshaping Global Agri-Food Trade“.

WFO supports strong measures that protect human, animal and plant health. The concern is not the existence of food safety rules, but the practical effect of requirements that diverge without sufficient scientific justification, coordination or notice. Farmers supplying more than one market may have to adapt their use of inputs, testing and production processes to comply with different sets of rules.

The burden is particularly high for small-scale producers, especially in developing countries. Where no common standard exists, or an importing market applies a different limit, farmers with the least capacity to absorb additional compliance costs may face the greatest difficulty in preserving market access.

WFO pointed out the need for stronger, better-resourced international standard–setting through Codex Alimentarius, the International Plant Protection Convention, and the World Organisation for Animal Health. Regulatory changes should also allow enough time for farmers to adjust, taking account of planting cycles and production already underway.

Farmers’ organisations can help regulators understand compliance costs and whether a proposed measure can be applied in different production systems. They can also communicate changes to farmers and identify where technical assistance or training is needed. Their involvement is therefore relevant both when standards are developed and when they are put into practice.

Why WFO members take part

For WFO members, the value of the Forum went beyond visibility: direct access to trade institutions, a clearer understanding of policy developments and exchange with farmers’ organisations facing different market conditions.

In a video recorded during the Forum, WFO delegates explain what participating in the WTO Public Forum brings to their organisations and the farmers they represent.

An organisation representing an export-oriented sector may focus on market access and regulatory differences. Another may be more concerned with import dependence, domestic production or the effects of global prices on local markets. Discussing these experiences together helps identify where concerns overlap and where national circumstances require different responses.

The WFO delegation included Hildegunn Gjengedal, Facilitator of the WFO Working Group on International Trade, and Bodhild Fjelltveit from Norges Bondelag; Irakli Rati Kochlamazashvili from the Georgian Farmers Association; Yves Ruel from Chicken Farmers of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture; Juha Ruippo from Maa- ja metsätaloustuottajain Keskusliitto (MTK); Klaas Johan Osinga from LTO Nederland; Robin Manning from the British Agriculture Bureau; Ellyn Ryan from NFU UK; Macaulay Jones and Rowena Hume from Beef + Lamb New Zealand; and Isadora Barbosa Souza from CNA Brazil. WFO Secretariat was represented by Secretary General Andrea Porro, Vittoria Altese, Advocacy, Policy and Partnerships Junior Officer, and Marija Dumic, Junior Communications Officer.

Participation in the WTO Public Forum connects WFO members‘ experiences with international policy processes and gives trade institutions direct access to the perspectives of those who must apply trade rules in practice. Agricultural trade rules are more likely to work when farmers and their organisations play a meaningful role in their development.

Cover photo by: ©WFO