David Blandford

Potential Implications of Animal Welfare Concerns and Public Policies in Industrialized Countries for International Trade

The intensification of systems of agricultural production has generated increasing concern in some countries about the treatment of farm animals. Perhaps nowhere are these concerns more apparent than in Europe. Wide-ranging legislation governing the treatment of farm animals exists in many European countries and at the multinational level through the European Union (EU). Private initiatives on the development of standards for the production and marketing of food products have emerged in some countries in response to public concerns over animal welfare. The EU accounts for roughly 50 percent of the trade in live animals, meat, and livestock products by the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).1 Private and public actions relating to animal welfare have potentially broad-reaching implications for agricultural practices in the countries concerned, and beyond their borders through effects on international competition and trade.

Farm income support with minimal trade distortions

Abstract The stalemate in the GATT negotiations on agriculture is due to US insistence on the elimination of all subsidies while the European Community and Japan demand the right to support farmers. This paper presents an alternative called ‘production entitlement guarantees’ (PEGs) that allow countries to satisfy farm support objectives yet minimize trade distortions. PEGs involve a limit on production receiving payments only. The removal of all other forms of trade-distorting market interventions is required such that consumers pay world market prices. PEGs would be negotiated and bound in the GATT and represent a politically acceptable method of supporting farm incomes.

Nontrade Concerns: Reconciling Domestic Policy Objectives with Freer Trade in Agricultural Products

Since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations in 1994, there has been increasing debate about the implications of freer trade for domestic or “nontrade” objectives in agriculture. These range from traditional concerns, such as food security and rural development, to more recent issues such as the relationship between agriculture and the environment, and the effects of agricultural practices on human health and animal welfare. For countries reluctant to reduce agricultural protection, a key issue is the extent to which domestic policy objectives would need to be sacrificed under freer trade. For countries espousing trade liberalization, the issue is whether domestic policy objectives will be used as a guise to undermine freer trade in agricultural products. In this paper, we focus on two areas of concern that are stressed by rich, developed countries—the linkage between agriculture and the environment, and animal welfare. Environmental issues are prominent in Asia, Europe and, increasingly in North America, while animal welfare is a major issue in Europe. It is generally acknowledged that agricultural support, provided through implicit consumer taxes and direct subsidies in developed countries, generates much of the distortion in global agricultural trade. The more than

Structural Adjustment and Learning to Live Without Subsidies in OECD Countries

300 billion of agricultural support that is provided annually by OECD countries, disadvantages developing country exporters and causes distortions in importers. Ensuring that there are effective disciplines on trade-distorting forms of support will be vital to the suc

How Effective are WTO Disciplines on Domestic Support and Market Access for Agriculture

Consumers and taxpayers in OECD countries stand to gain substantially more from the elimination of farm subsidies than farmers would lose. This is the overwhelming consensus of numerous empirical studies (Blandford). Despite the evidence, and widespread agreement among economists on its implications for policy, farm support remains almost as high as ever in OECD countries (OECD 1994a). The substantial reduction in subsidies in New

Commodity market instability: Empirical techniques for analysis

A new round of trade negotiations through the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. One of the major aims of the Doha Development Round is to reduce agricultural protection and impose greater discipline on domestic agricultural subsidies, particularly those that are the most trade distorting. In this article, we examine whether the proposed WTO modalities for agriculture will actually achieve this aim in Norway, which ranks among the top providers of government assistance for agriculture. Norway has a complex system of farm subsidies buttressed by substantial import protection. The extent to which its agricultural support policies will have to change in response to new WTO disciplines provides an important indication of how successful these are likely to be. We find that Norway will probably be able to sustain its current agricultural activity and production levels while staying within the new WTO rules. Following recent practice in some other WTO members, Norway will be able to reduce its notified support without making real changes in some of its programmes. However, there will have to be a shift from market price support, which is paid for by consumers through higher food prices, to budgetary support paid by taxpayers. This could generate increased domestic pressure for policy reform.

Determinants of farm policies in the United States, 1996-2008

Abstract The single variable techniques and variance decompositions reviewed here provide essentially descriptive information on commodity instability. The single variable measures may assist in making the distinction between ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ variability or in characterizing some particular aspect of instability, such as the prevalence of outliers in a data series. The decompositions provide a view of the instability through the contributions of its tautological components. Insight into different facets of instability are provided by each approach; taken together, these techniques can be used to build a composite picture of the instability phenomenon. However, neither offers explanation of the casual, structural forces from which the observed instability arises.

Achieving Environmental Objectives Under Reduced Domestic Agricultural Support and Trade Liberalization: An Empirical Application to Taiwan

This paper focuses on the political economy of United States (U.S.) farm policy since the Uruguay round trade negotiations concluded in 1994 and established the World Trade Organization (WTO). The continued ability of the powerful farm lobby in the U.S. to elicit support in the political arena is evident from this analysis. Yet there have been some substantial changes in policy that have reduced their distortionary effects, as well as some setbacks to liberalizing reform. New Doha round commitments could put further constraints on subsidies provided by some U.S. policy instruments. And despite the ability of the farm lobby to retain its support programs through 2012, there are several political uncertainties about the alignments that have allowed U.S. farm support to endure.

Distributional Impact of Farm Programs and the Adjustment Dilemma

We focus on rice policy reform required for Taiwans admission to the WTO, and examine the effects, theoretically and empirically, of the re-instrumentation of domestic policy needed to achieve environmental objectives when both positive and negative environmental externalities exist. Policies that treat non-commodity attributes in agriculture as secondary to existing aims, such as income support, are unlikely to result in the desired supplies of environmental goods. Those supplies can be achieved at lower government and social costs using policy instruments to achieve environmental goals directly. Results are relatively insensitive to the social values assigned to environmental goods.

An analysis of International Bulfer Stocks for cocoa and copper through dynamic optimization

farm program benefits in the United States that it could be regarded as folly to raise the issue again. From the earlier work of Bonnen, Schultze, and Gardner and Hoover, to more recent analyses by Lin, Johnson, and Calvin and U.S. Congress, the distributional effects of farm programs have been widely discussed by agricultural economists. Given the history of farm policy legislation, it could be argued that the distributional question has not been a major item on the political agenda in the United States.