As an organization and community practicing a people-led, solidarity-economy model, Good Food joins the global day of action against the imperialist global trade system advanced by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Millions and millions of Filipinos remain hungry as WTO continues to dismantle the trade regulations that protect our domestic production, eroding our very capacity to produce safe and sufficient food for all Filipinos.
The WTO restricts our country’s use of subsidies to support our agricultural development, while opening up our markets to the entry of heavily subsidized imports from developed countries. It also imposes limits on our public stockholding for food security of the Filipino people so we remain dependent on global markets.
Favoring the trade agenda of rich and powerful nations, the WTO keeps our raw natural resources plundered and our food system captured and colonized. And when crises strike, such as one we’re experiencing now, with gas prices increasing, we are unable to meet our own needs, and basic commodities go beyond the reach of millions of Filipinos.
Here’s the fact: all over the world, and no less in the Philippines, the WTO is instrumental in destroying people’s sovereignty over their food systems. It continues to fail its development mandate, unable to resolve the many injustices that leave populations hungry, including the food producers themselves.
With the upcoming WTO 14th Ministerial Conference from March 26 to 29, 2026, in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where the 166 WTO members come together to address the pressing challenges facing the global trading system and to put forward solutions and actions, we demand support the following demands:
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Respect developing countries’ prerogative to maintain public stockholding programmes for food security, without being penalised under WTO rules; and ensure these programmes support affordable access to staple food and resilient local production systems
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Permit subsidies for domestic and sustainable agriculture to strengthen livelihoods, promote agroecology, and protect local markets; and prohibit trade-distorting subsidies from industrial agriculture in developed countries that undermine local producers in developing countries
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Ensure that developed countries end all fisheries subsidies that fuel overcapacity, overfishing, and high-seas exploitation
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Support food sovereignty, land justice, and the rights of peasants, smallholder farmers, and Indigenous Peoples
