With more than 800 million people in the world going to bed hungry and over 3 billion people – 42% of the global population – unable to afford a healthy diet, food insecurity has reached critical levels. In India, 74% of the population is unable to afford a healthy diet and according to the FAO, 224 million – 16% of India’s population – are undernourished. In this context, UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report underscores the need for strengthening redistributive social programmes to defend vulnerable households from increased food prices and insulate farmers from international food price volatility. It points out, however, that the problem cannot be solved purely by domestic efforts; most developing countries, including India, are constrained by insufficient policy space due to the restrictive provisions of some Agreements at the WTO which hinders their efforts to develop effective national food security programmes.The domestic support that developing countries can give to their farmers under these Agreements differs widely from that which the developed countries can provide, as advanced countries were able to procure a much higher binding for domestic support to their farmers, i.e., Aggregate Measure of Support. While the United States can provide a maximum of $19 billion, the European Union $81 billion, and Japan $36 billion, 104 developing countries can provide “zero” support. The Africa Group at the WTO has also highlighted the urgent need to revisit and correct this inequity.More importantly, while billions of dollars are provided as subsidies to the farmers in the rich countries, developing countries like India are unable to design their food procurement programmes like the “public stockholding.” Under this programme, governments procure, stock, and distribute food to the public. In most cases the governments procure food at a minimum support price which is higher than the market price. The difference between these two prices is considered as a subsidy for the farmers under the WTO rules. Under the “de minimis” provision in the Agreement on Agriculture, a ceiling is set for procurement in developing countries. They can provide this support with respect to only 10% of the value of production of both product-specific and non-product specific support. However, the subsidy in terms of minimum support price is calculated using the reference price index of 1986-1988 and is not based on the current prices, therefore it does not consider the intervening rise in prices. Consequently, many developing countries, including India, have breached their binding obligations. Given the increasing volatility in food prices, at the 9th Ministerial Conference in Bali in 2013, India negotiated hard on this issue, and it was agreed that there is a need to update the rules under the Agreement on Agriculture with respect to public stockholding of food. Until a permanent solution is found, a “peace clause” will prevail which implies that members would temporarily refrain from lodging complaints against any developing country which exceeds its de-minimis limits. While many proposals have been tabled with respect to public stockholding and India has delivered many statements on it, even after a decade, a permanent solution has not been agreed. Given the rising volatility in international prices of food and growing food insecurity, it becomes urgent to provide flexibility in the existing rules and a permanent solution to this issue in the upcoming MC13 in February 2024.Apart from the Aggregate Measure of Support, advanced countries are also able to provide billions of dollars of subsidies to their farmers under the “green box” subsidy, which are supposed to be non-trade-distorting. However, a stream of independent studies has shown that green box subsidies shift the global production of food towards un-competitive producers in advanced countries, which have the financial resources to provide these subsidies, thereby adversely impacting the incomes of farmers in developing countries. Hence, there is a need to discipline green box subsidies to ensure more equitable distribution of gains from production and trade in food. Furthermore, the Report argues that there is a need to improve the integration of small farmers into the domestic and international markets, raising their bargaining power, and making the gains from trade reach the poorest farmer. This requires addressing the high concentration of food markets and discouraging speculative behaviour with adequate regulations. Breaking the food monopolies and revisiting WTO Agreements to provide policy space to developing countries becomes critical for progressing towards global food security.Richard Kozul-Wright, director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD.