Timothy E. Josling

Agricultural policy reform: politics and process in the EU and US in the 1990s.

The analytical framework for farm policy reform the search for an agricultural policy paradigm shift. Reform frustrated: the Uruguay round, 1986-1990 the 1990 US farm bill - reducing the budget, but minimizing the pain the 1992 MacSharry reform of the CAP. Reform revived: the Dunkel draft, the Blair house accord and the WTO agreement on agriculture the FAIR act of 1996 - decoupling payments from production Agenda 2000 - new reforms for the CAP the 2000 agricultural negotiations. Reform compared: similarities and differences between the US and EU the future of agricultural policy reform in the EU and the US.

Hathaway, Dale E. Agriculture and the GATT: Rewriting the Rules. Washington DC: Institute for International Economics, Policy Analysis in International Economics No. 20, Sep. 1987, xii + 157 pp.,

Agriculture and the GATT :rewriting the rules , Agriculture and the GATT :rewriting the rules , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی

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The study of international trade in agricultural products has developed rapidly over the past fifty years. In the 1960s the disarray in world agriculture caused by domestic price support policies became the focus of analytical studies. There followed attempts to measure the distortions caused by policies also in developing countries and to model their impact on world agricultural markets. Tools were advanced to explain the trends and variations in world prices and the implications of market imperfections. Challenges for the future include analyzing trade based on consumer preferences for certain production methods and understanding the impact of climate change mitigation and adaptation on trade. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.

Understanding International Trade in Agricultural Products: One Hundred Years of Contributions by Agricultural Economists

Abstract Exports of processed foods from developing countries have expanded rapidly in recent times, contributing to their economic development. Recent published research has shown that the export policies and agricultural resource endowment of the developing country offer significant explanations for this export growth. But what if developing countries further lowered their tariff barriers against imports? What impact would such policy changes have on processed food exports from developing countries? Alternatively, what if processed food trade barriers are lowered in developed countries? And if trade in manufactured goods were to be further liberalised, what might be the impacts on the processed food sectors of developing countries? An applied general equilibrium model is used to shed light on these questions through simulations of trade policy alternatives. Most developing regions examined had a positive effective protection rate for processed foods in the base year. This effective protection was lowered when such countries reduced their agricultural tariffs. When tariff cuts were extended to manufactured goods, effective protection of food processing in most developing regions increased somewhat, but was still less than base-period protection. For the developing countries, it would appear that comprehensive trade policy reforms, taken by themselves, are about as significant as those of the developed world in terms of contributing to growth in processed food exports from developing countries. Such reforms allow those developing countries with a comparative advantage in food production to expand exports and to take advantage of increased access to other developing countries with a less favourable agricultural resource endowment, as well as to developed country markets.

Processed food trade and developing countries: protection and trade liberalization

Agricultural protectionism is a basic factor underlying the U.S. trade deficit, Third World debt, and global underemployment. Yet despite the seriousness of the problem and attention given to it by many researchers, little progress has been made in formulating and implementing policies to deal with it. The scholars and experts here assembled present for the first time a quantification and analysis of the impact upon the world economy of reduction or elimination of agricultural protectionism. They question why, give the magnitude of the problem, inferior policies endure despite the weight of evidence that they have failed. The answer they derive is that there is no general understanding of the true cost of the failure, and therefore it is necessary to initiate reform from outside agricultural circles.

Stoeckel, Andrew B., David Vincent, and Sandy Cuthbertson, eds. MacroEconomic Consequences of Farm Support Policies. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1989, xiii + 381 pp.,

Книга об аграрной политике США и ЕС. Рассматриваются различные подходы в области поддержки сельского хозяйства и отношения между ЕС и США. В анализе процесса принятия решений по сельскому хозяйству авторами используются современные модели из теории общественного выбора. Затрагивается международный аспект либерализации торговли сельскохозяйственной продукции и противоречивость внутренних аграрных политик.

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Publisher Summary No one can predict the future of genetically modified (GM) foods and the broader biotech revolution. But three different futures seem possible at this moment. First, the objections to GM foods could evaporate as consumers in Europe and other countries decide that their fears on the health effects were groundless, as consumer-friendly traits begin to appear in foods, and as the price of genetically modified organisms (GMO) free foods rises to reflect the cost of segregation. A second possibility is that the industry could decide that the world is not ready for the biotech revolution and that there is no point in investing further in a process that faces real or imagined obstacles. Investment could dry up and farmers could shift back to using more traditional seeds. Consumer and environmental groups would celebrate their victory and move on to other issues and regulators would return to dealing with less controversial issues. A third possible outcome is more credible, though less easy to specify. This scenario includes a period of perhaps five to ten years of disorganization as firms and pressure groups continue their play for the ear of public opinion and the pen of the regulator. Governments take different views, depending on the importance of the industry to their economies and on the strength of public opinion. Then the situation will settle down, with a number of successful GM food products competing with their traditional and organic counterparts. Certain types of GM crops will be restricted to certain parts of a country or regions of the world.

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Romeo may indeed have believed that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but would a feta cheese by any other name sell as well in the supermarket? Producers from a particular region who have acquired a reputation for quality, and see others cashing in on that reputation, clearly think that there it is well worth seeking protection for their names. Should this be a universal phenomenon? Or is it limited to a few wines and cheeses produced by European farmers? In the brave new world of global markets and multilateral food regulations the framework for the treatment of such geographical indications (GIs) is still under construction. And the decisions chosen could have significant impacts on farmers and consumers in all countries.

Agricultural Policy Reform: Politics and Process in the EC and USA.

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.

12 – Looking to the Future

This is a product of a research project on Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, under the leadership of Kym Anderson of the World Bank’s Development Research Group. The author is grateful for invaluable research support that was provided by Uli Kleinwechter and Teresa Rojas Lara of Humboldt University, for invaluable help with data compilation by Johanna Croser, Esteban Jara, Marianne Kurzweil, Signe Nelgen, Francesca de Nicola, Damiano Sandri and Ernesto Valenzuela, for helpful comments from workshop participants and from Stefan Tangermann, and for funding from World Bank Trust Funds provided by the governments of the Netherlands (BNPP) and the United Kingdom DfID) as well as the Rockefeller Foundation for use of the Bellagio Conference Center. A revised version of this paper without the Appendix will appear in Distortions to Agricultural Incentives: A Global Perspective, 1955 to 2007, edited by K. Anderson, London: Palgrave Macmillan and Washington DC: World Bank (forthcoming 2009).