TITLE; THE CONTRIBUTION OF TRADE SECTORS IN GOOD

NUTRITION

What are Trade sector?

Trade sector means the direct export-promotion such as the trading business, the
provision of marketing services for companies, and the development of the trade-
related law. In addition, the assistance for the foster age of SME/supporting industry,
which is the indirect export-promotion like improving the companies competitiveness,
is also included in this evaluation scope. Such inclusion is necessary because those
latter items are important for improving export performance, not to mention the
importance of capacity development in the narrow meaning of trade sector.

Trade intermediary 
For a given commodity, an intermediary country is one that imports food for the
purpose of re-exporting. intermediary countries are important facilitators of trade.we
define a country as an intermediary for the commodity if the total export of the
commodity is more than 80% of the total import (i.e. the majority of import is for re-
exporting) in 2000, the baseline year. The motivation and trade behaviour of an
intermediary country will be different from other non-intermediary countries that
import for domestic consumption.

What are Good nutrition?

Good nutrition means eating a balanced and healthy diet. It’s important to make sure
you are getting the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals your body needs to function
properly. Plan your meals so that they are nutrient-dense and low in calories:

 Eat a varied diet that includes plenty of whole grain products, vegetables, and

fruits.
 Drink more water and other calorie-free beverages, along with fat-free or low-fat
milk and 100% fruit juices.
 Include seafood, lean meat, poultry, eggs, beans,  peas, nuts, and seeds in your
diet.
 Reduce your intake of saturated and trans fats, sugars, and salt.

Food and nutrients 

Countries will produce, trade and consume a different amount in each food category,
which we then use to calculate macro and micronutrients. The aggregated groups to
which each food category belongs are as follows: ‘Cereals – Excluding Beer’,
‘Starchy Roots’, ‘Sugar Crops’, ‘Sugar & Sweeteners’, ‘Pulses’, ‘Treenuts’,
‘Oilcrops’, ‘Vegetable Oils’, ‘Vegetables’, ‘Fruits – Excluding Wine’, ‘Spices’,
‘Stimulants’, ‘Alcoholic Beverages’, ‘Meat’, ‘Offal’, ‘Animal fats’, ‘Eggs’, ‘Milk –
Excluding Butter’, ‘Fish; Seafood’, ‘Aquatic Products’ and ‘Other (e.g. Infant food
and miscellaneous)’.
Why is good nutrition so important?

Most people know that good nutrition and physical activity can help maintain a
healthy weight. However, the benefits of good nutrition go beyond weight. Good
nutrition can help:

 Reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis, and some types

of cancer
 Lower  high blood pressure
 Lower high cholesterol levels
 Improve mental well-being
 Improve ability to fight infection.
 Improve ability to recover from illness or injury
 Increase energy levels

TRADE AND NUTRITION

In November 2014, governments from around the world committed themselves to

developing ‘coherent public policies’ to advance nutrition. The occasion was the
FAO/WHO jointly organized Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2).
One year later, governments also called for ‘policy coherence’ – when policies in
different sectors support common objectives – in the implementation of the new
Agenda 2030 and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. One area in
which coherence is needed, is between trade policies and nutrition policies and
programs. This is a controversial area: some people are clearly worried about trade
from a nutritional perspective; others view trade as an effective and efficient way to
advance human development.

The Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) recommended that

policy makers take a multi-sectoral approach to tackling the issue of malnutrition by
developing ‘coherent public policies’ to advance nutrition. Endorsed by participating
governments at the conference, the Framework for Action committed world leaders to
establishing national policies aimed at eradicating malnutrition and transforming food
systems to make nutritious diets available to all. With regards to trade, the
recommendations of this conference included

• Recommendation 17: Encourage governments, United Nations agencies,

programmes and funds, the World Trade Organization and other international
organizations to identify opportunities to achieve global food and nutrition targets,
through trade and investment policies.

• Recommendation 18: Improve the availability and access of the food supply through
appropriate trade agreements and policies and endeavour to ensure that such
agreements and policies do not have a negative impact on the right to adequate food
in other countries.

The role of trade and policies in providing food security and

nutrition

There is much historical evidence that international trade promotes economic growth,
as it allows countries to use its resources more efficiently by specializing in products
and services it can produce most competitively (e.g. Brooks & Matthews, 2015;
Martin & Laborde, 2018). Economic growth is assumed to directly contribute to
poverty reduction, as it creates employment opportunities and reduces prices, among
others for food, from which all – also the less affluent – consumers can benefit.
Following this argument, there is a positive association of international trade with all
four dimensions of food security:
 Trade contributes to food availability by enabling imports to cover shortfalls in
domestic supply, thus contributing substantially to meeting food demand in food
deficit countries.

 Trade increases food access by speeding economic growth—which boosts

incomes and food purchasing power—and by lowering consumer prices.

 Trade improves food utilization because of greater overall demand for food (due

to economic growth and higher incomes), and because a larger income share can
be devoted to the purchase of nutrient-rich food. In addition, trade may contribute
to a more diversified diet by providing various food products otherwise not
available locally.

 Trade increases food stability by balancing food surpluses and deficits, by

reducing seasonal effects on local food availability and by making local markets
less prone to policy or weather shocks.

Despite the widely acknowledged links between increased trade and improved food
security, trade can also pose numerous challenges to food systems in low income
food-deficit countries. In these countries, increased trade brings a risk of higher
dependence on food imports. This puts local producers under growing competitive
pressure—and it makes consumers more vulnerable to external shocks in food
availability e.g. (Koning & Pinstrup-Anderson, 2007; De Schutter, 2011;
Mary, 2019). Another concern is that increased access to cheaper, more diversified
food through open trade may not necessarily improve the nutritional quality of diets.
By supporting the ‘nutritional transition’, trade openness can also increase access to
unhealthy food and thus drive overweight and obesity (Global Panel, 2020). Further,
recent international price spikes—in 2007/2008 and 2011/2012—have cast into doubt
the assumption that trade openness makes food markets more stable – while market
became more unstable as net exporting countries declared export restrictions
(Morrison & Sarris, 2016). The recent global spread of the corona virus (COVID-19)
and its disruptive consequences for food security has illustrated again how vulnerable
internationally connected food value chains can be (IFPRI, 2020).
Because of these concerns, the net food system impact of international trade—and of
policies to boost trade even further—is uncertain. The effects of trade on various
dimensions of food system security can be positive, negative, or neutral, can also be
different for each segment of the society (e.g. food producer, consumer, trader, non-
agricultural activities), and also context-specific (Fig. 1). International trade thus
comes with complex trade-offs that need to be addressed through a decisive package
of policies.

Policy between trade and nutrition can be achieved if deliberate effort is made to align
trade policy actions to nutrition objectives. When policies from different sectors align,
there are mutual benefits on both sides. For example trade policies that promote good
nutritional outcomes, will result in healthy populations who can contribute to the
economic development of nations. However, more focus is needed on making trade
work for nutrition. This call was reiterated in the Rome Declaration of the Second
International Conference on Nutrition for trade policies that are ‘conducive to
fostering food security and nutrition for all’.

Nutrition in the trade and food security

Linkages between trade, food security and nutrition Four pathways have been
proposed of how trade can influence nutrition in a positive way through enhanced
food security (Gilson et al., 2015; UKDBIS, 2013; Brooks and Matthews, 2015;
Burnett and Murphy, 2013):

 Stability of food supply and prices. Global food output is relative stable
compared to domestic food output, so trade in food can act as a buffer to counter
domestic fluctuations in food supply and in the prices of that food.
 Diversity of supply. Trade also has the potential to increase the diversity of
national diets by increasing the availability of different types of foods.
 Lower food prices. More open trade allows production of foods to switch from
higher to lower cost producers, so in theory enabling food prices to decrease for
consumers.
 Increased income. Increased trade is associated with rising incomes, which can
provide government revenues, and improve food access if trade positively
impacts employment for poor people. Yet these pathways are largely limited to
the food supply and income aspects of food security (Clapp, 2014).

There is very little evidence available on how these changes link through and affect
nutritional status on the ground. While a necessary condition for good nutrition, these
pathways are not sufficient for all people to have physical and economic access to
sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs. Further actions
would be needed, or conditions met, to make this happen. While there are frameworks
that link trade and food security, food security and nutrition, and trade and nutrition,
there is not yet an established framework that links all three. This is in part because of
the lack of adequate evidence on the linkages, and also because of series of related
challenges. A core challenge is that not all foods are created equal: foods differ in
their contribution to improving nutrition. Some foods can contribute to good nutrition
in any amount, some in modest amounts, and some are discretionary and should be
consumed in moderation. Yet trade may have the effect of boosting the availability
and lowering the prices of both healthy foods (e.g. fruits, fish) (Huang et al., 2010;
Asche et al., 2015), and foods that should be consumed in moderation (e.g. soft drinks
and snacks) (e.g. Hawkes, 2006; Stuckler et al., 2012; Schram et al., 2015). The
association of unhealthy eating with trade and accompanying investment is one which
has received particular attention owing to concerns about excessive consumption of
high calorie snacks and drinks. Concerns have also been raised about the impact of
trade on the availability and promotion of breast milk substitutes (Smith et al., 2014).
Another challenge is that the relationship between trade and nutrition outcomes can be
expected to vary over time and space. At certain times of the year, trade can serve to
fill food shortages, or in the case of emergencies (del Ninno and Dorosh, 2001);
during other times, if it may undermine local markets (Khor et al., 2006). Trade can
also be expected to have different impacts on different countries depending, among
other factors, on the nature of the food systems. For example, the relationship between
trade and nutrition could be expected to be different between net food importing
countries and net food exporting countries (Brooks and Matthews, 2015). The
relationship between trade and malnutrition can also be expected to differ between
different forms of malnutrition. Some forms of malnutrition are associated with
inadequate consumption, some excess consumption – and in some cases health and
inadequate caring practices are more important causes. So children who are
experiencing moderate acute malnutrition, or people in emergency situations, may
benefit from trade – but people at risk of malnutrition associated with excessive
consumption may not. As a result of these factors, it is hard to draw generalize
relationships between trade and nutrition: trade can be expected to have both positive
and negative impacts on nutrition. These dynamics are shown in the Table. Column 3
shows that trade can have both positive and negative implications for food security
through the four pathways. Column 4 shows that how these positive or negative
impacts translate into better nutrition outcomes in part depends on accompanying
actions – or a lack of them. This, in turn, suggests that a conceptual framework of the
links between trade, food security and nutrition requires consideration of the
differential impact trade has in different places and at different times, the effect it has
on different foods, how it affects different forms of malnutrition, and what is needed
to transfer the positive impacts of trade on food security into nutritional outcomes,
and mitigate the negative.

Promoting policy between trade, food security and nutrition

Modern trade policy involves a huge array of different policies designed to influence
not just the physical movement of products across national borders but the provision
of services and economic exchange. It includes measures that influence trade across
borders as well as “behind-the-border” policies that affect trade and the incentives for
private companies to trade and invest. Despite the links between trade, food security
and nutrition, the harmonization of objectives between policies designed to liberalize
trade, enhance food security, and improve nutrition has historically been weak. This
begs the question: are the objectives of trade policies coherent with the objectives of
nutrition action? That is, are they designed to help ensure that actions taken to achieve
different policy objectives support rather than undermine each other (OECD, 2014)?
Trade policies can be said to support nutrition when they have objectives synergistic
with the objectives of nutrition action. That is, they are coherent with actions that
enable and motivate:
 All people – including infants & young children between six months and two
years – to consume adequate, safe, nutritious, diverse, healthy diets and safe
drinking water all year round.
 Mothers to breastfeed their babies exclusively for the first six months with
continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two
years of age or beyond.
 All people, especially at periods of specific nutrient needs such as pregnancy, to
have an adequate intake of micro-nutrients such as Vitamin A, iron, iodine, etc. •
People who are malnourished and/or sick are treated through healthcare platforms
and programs. As for trade itself, the evidence indicates that it is difficult to
generalize about the links between trade, food security and nutrition. As
described further by Hawkes (2015), there are four core needs to enhance
coherence:

 Context-specific analysis of the coherence between trade policy and the nutrition
policies and programs in place in national and local settings.
 Identification of complementary policies and actions to enhance coherence in
order to transfer the benefits of trade to the populations who need it, and to
mitigate risks (e.g. through consumers and social protection).
 Build capacity for cross-sectoral policy making.
 Improve governance of policy-making processes.

A Role for Trade in Resolving Nutrient Deficiencies

Approximately 80% of global food consumption is produced locally but the share of
internationally traded food commodities has been steadily increasing from 10% in
1985 to 14% in 2017 (Geyik et al., 2021). The demand for imported food products in
low- and middle-income countries is increasing, with current projections anticipating
an increase in their importation of major food commodities by 2–3.5 times from 2012
to 2050 (FAO, 2018b). In 2020 the demand for imported food commodities in lower-
income countries made up 80% of the annual rise in the world’s total food import bill
(FAO, 2021a). In such an environment international trade has great potential to ensure
the availability of food and nutrients where they are most needed, acting as a resilient
pillar for global food and nutrition security (D’Odorico et al., 2019; Geyik et al.,
2021)

The potential for the global redistribution of specific nutrients to nourish the world
population has been calculated recently, with dietary protein, vitamin A, iron, vitamin
B12, and zinc being the key nutrients to consider (Figure 2). Trade in animal-sourced
products ideally would assist in this nutrient redistribution, given that the bio
availability of these nutrients is higher compared to plant-based foods and that diets
low in animal-sourced products are often deficient in key micro nutrients (Allen and
Sachs, 2012).

The number of extra people, in billions, who could be nourished if nutrients in excess
of current global needs were evenly distributed. Source: Wood et al. (2018) with
permission. When domestic food production is affected by shocks, including
conflicts, climate extremes, and more insidiously, global warming, international trade
offers an opportunity to mitigate the risks of increased yield variability and ensure
collective food security across the world (Kinnunen et al., 2020). One such study for
example emphasized the positive role open international trade can play in reducing
the impact of the worst projected climate scenarios on global hunger (Janssens et al.,
2020). This study showed that removal of trade costs by withdrawing tariffs that were
in place prior to the World Trade Organization's Doha round of trade negotiations
combined with minimizing the cost for infrastructure associated with increased trade
has the potential to lower the risk of hunger by an estimated 11–64% in the face of
climate change. In each case, the most impacted regions would be sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia.
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