Trade policies play a critical role in shaping incentives for more sustainable agricultural production and consumption. Ensuring that trade policies support the transition to more sustainable agriculture will be essential to addressing the “triple challenge” of providing food security and nutrition for a growing population, securing livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people along the agri-food supply chain, and contributing to environmental sustainability.
Facundo Calvo, Harry Wardana, Christophe Bellmann, & Goldy Evi Grace Simatupang
Publication date
12 October 2026
This policy brief examines how trade policies can support sustainable agriculture amid three structural shifts in global agricultural trade. First, the geography of supply and demand has more recently rebalanced towards emerging and developing economies. Second, the period of gradually declining real commodity prices that characterized much of the past several decades has given way to an environment characterized by supply chain disruptions, price volatility, and climate-driven shocks. Third, digital technologies are beginning to reshape how agri-food supply chains transmit information, risk, and value.
Governments are responding to these challenges through a growing range of trade-related measures intended to encourage sustainable agricultural production, consumption, and trade. These include price- and market-based measures, support measures and other economic incentives, and regulatory measures. Alongside government measures, voluntary sustainability standards have also proliferated and are increasingly integrated into government policy instruments.
The policy brief identifies four areas where enhanced international cooperation is critical to advancing sustainable agriculture: (i) removing environmentally harmful subsidies and other economic incentives; (ii) fostering interoperability and equivalences of regulatory measures; (iii) facilitating the development, diffusion, access to, and uptake of goods, services, and technologies that support sustainable agricultural production; and (iv) providing trade incentives for sustainably produced agricultural products or healthy and nutritious foods.
The paper then considers possible venues and modes of cooperation at the international level and concludes by providing a framework for institutional choice for each of the four priority areas where international cooperation will be critical to advancing sustainable agriculture.
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Recommended citation: Calvo, F., Wardana, H., Bellmann, C., & Simatupang, G. (2026). Fostering sustainable agriculture through inclusive cooperation on trade. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs (TESS) and Institute for International Trade at Adelaide University.
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