IFPRI's research on global agricultural trade negotiations focuses how to include low-income countries in the world trading system in a way that will improve the food and nutrition security of poor people. To that end, IFPRI researchers have modeled various proposals before the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations to highlight their effects for poor countries.

In 2006 researchers found that the compromise agreement then under consideration would yield global income gains of about US$55 billion but would do little for developing countries. IFPRI then modeled two additional changes. First, if free access of least-developed countries to wealthy-country markets increased from 97 percent to 100 percent, world income would increase by an additional US$14 billion over the compromise scenario. Most important, about half of these additional gains would go to the poorest countries, increasing their income dramatically from US$1 billion to US$7 billion. Second, if the percentage of agricultural products defined as sensitive and special were reduced from 5 percent to 1 percent, world income would increase by an additional US$7.3 billion over the compromise scenario. This change would especially benefit developing countries where agriculture is an important source of employment and export earnings, most notably the middle-income countries.

IFPRI's work in this area has contributed significantly to the debate over international trade negotiations and the Doha Round. The research has received significant media exposure through print, broadcast, and Internet media worldwide, including in the New York Times, Agence France-Presse, and Voice of America. In addition, based on an IFPRI position statement on the suspension of Doha Round negotiations, nearly 80 professional applied economists sent an open letter to heads of government and trade ministers, arguing in favor of the changes in trade rules modeled by IFPRI. An IFPRI researcher was an invited expert to a WTO meeting called "Modeling the Gains from Trade Liberalization" to help explain why various attempts to model the benefits of trade liberalization have produced divergent results.

The Carnegie Endowment for International for Peace cited IFPRI's results in a report called "Nickel and Diming the Poor: U.S. Implementation of the LDC Initiative" that was presented to the U.S. Congress.

For more information on IFPRI's research on globalization and markets, including the Doha Round negotiations, go to http://www.ifpri.org/Themes/grp02.htm.