Adding a new perspective to US agricultural trade policy

The American agricultural crisis and the Third World debt crisis have distinct differences but have their roots in fundamentally common causal factors and patterns1. The most obvious linkage is the international trade dimension. The debt problems of Third World countries, which for the most part are major potential import markets for American agricultural products, limited their demand for US agricultural exports at a time when American agriculture had become increasingly dependent on them. However, while most developing countries are food importers, the debts of other countries, particularly the southern cone countries of South America, have resulted in these countries becoming greater competition for the United States in export markets.KeywordsGovernment OutlayExport MarketDebt CrisisFarm IncomeLoan PortfolioThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Agricultural trade policies in the new millennium

Trade in agricultural commodities can play a significant role in stabilizing the supply conditions, help ensure the food security and stabilizing agricultural prices. International trade has also been recognized as an engine for inclusive economic growth, poverty reduction and an important tool to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Diverse agro-climatic conditions in India endow the country with production and trade of various agricultural commodities. Agricultural exports from India have undergone significant change in terms of trends, composition and diversification. We examined the trend in exports of agricultural commodities, export performance, commodity and geographical diversification and established the trade-growth linkages. Export performance was examined through the comparative export performance index. Since 2001, cotton and cereals, especially rice have been the major contributors in agricultural exports. Also, the share of meat and edible meat offals has consistently increased during 2001–2018. Analyses of export performance for various commodity groups during 2011–14 and 2015–18 categorized various exported commodities into highly competitive, competitive, weakly competitive and uncompetitive commodities. During 2011–18, rice, frozen bovine meat, cotton yarn, raw cotton, ginger, pepper and seed spices remained highly competitive commodities. Crustaceans emerged as highly competitive during 2015–18. Granger causality established bidirectional causality in tea, coffee, spices and fish exports, while the export-led growth hypothesis was confirmed in the case of cotton. The country needs to focus on stable trade policy particularly in those commodities with greater trade potential. Also, the sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) should be taken care of strictly adhering to the international standards. Export-oriented supply chains should be efficiently managed reducing the costs and making exports more competitive. With Government’s focus to double agricultural exports and an Agricultural Export Policy in place, India needs to find effective solutions to become a global leader in agricultural exports. Needless to say, effective logistic management and quality management is the need of the hour to strengthen global trade linkages.

PurposeThis study examines the impact of the US government customer concentration and product innovation in supplier firms. The US government customer concentration is defined as the proportion of sales made by a supplier firm to the US government as a major customer. To measure product innovation, the author uses two key metrics: the number of patents and the novelty of the patents. The results indicate that a supplier firm’s relationship with the US government, as measured by the tenure of the relationship, has a significant impact on product innovation. Furthermore, the author shows that changes in the composition of the US government, Senate can also affect the level of innovation in supplier firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs the Compustat’s Segment Customer database and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Patent Citation database to gather information regarding patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The author also incorporates data from US Congressional committees from the 96th to 115th Congresses to assess the effect of changes in seniority of US senators on influential committees on the firm’s innovation. For a robustness test, the author utilizes a propensity score matched analysis.FindingsThe author demonstrates that a firm’s dependence on the US government as a customer channel for an extended period negatively impacts the firm’s innovation efficiency, as measured by the number of patents, citations and novelty of the patents. In addition, the author provides evidence that changes in the seniority of US senators on influential committees have a significant impact on firms located in the same state as the new senior senators. These firms decrease innovative efforts due to the political connections, resulting in lower levels of innovation. These findings are robust after controlling the endogeneity issues. In conclusion, this study contributes to the existing literature by offering insight into the relationship between customer concentration and firm innovation. The findings highlight the importance of considering the relationship between firms and their customer base in determining innovation outcomes.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates that a heavy reliance on the US government as a customer channel has a detrimental impact on a firm’s innovation efficiency. Furthermore, the author analyzes the exogenous shock of changes in the seniority of US senators on the relationship between customer dependence and innovation. By utilizing a propensity matched sample, the author addresses endogeneity concerns and provides robust evidence for empirical findings. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the complex relationship between customer dependence and firm innovation, particularly in the context of the US government as a sales channel.

During the mid 1970s, Chile began a bold program of unilateral trade liberalization following decades of protectionism, effectively putting an end to four decades of import substitution policies. Like other countries Latin America, Chile had relied on quantitative restrictions (QRs) and, some cases, high tariffs to protect the production of importables. Agricultural exports were subject to QRs; moreover, agriculture suffered a high indirect taxation from industrial protection (Hurtado, Valdrs, and Muchnik). The current trade regime is simple to describe: a uniform tariff of 11% applies to all importables except wheat, sugar, and edible oils, which have a price band scheme which provides additional protection beyond the uniform tariff. There are no QRs on imports and no export taxes, licensing, or quotas. A uniform VAT applies to all imports and domestic production, and under the Uruguay Round Agreement (URA) of April 1994, Chile bound tariffs at 25% for all products except wheat and sugar (at 31.5%). Thus, Chile's program of tariffs, like several countries Latin America, had already occurred at the time of the URA April of 1994. Chile, therefore, came out of the GATT negotiations with virtually no mandated changes to its trade policies. Today, Chile's agricultural trade policy is facing new challenges. One is to maintain an open trade regime the face of continuous pressure for protection of importables because of a stress on profitability since about 1990. A second challenge is to improve trade-related institutions such as rules for dealing with contingency protection measures (safeguards, antidumping, etc.,) that remain out of step with liberalized trade. A third challenge is related to preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which have taken on astonishing prominence more recently the trade policy debate of the postUruguay round Latin America. Regional agreements are in and trade agreements proliferate: MERCOSUR the Southern Cone; NAFTA North America; the Free-Trade Agreement at the Summit for the Americas Miami; and older treaties such as the Andean Trade Preference Act. Add to these the trade

Ammonia is a critical component of the US economy as US agricultural exports exceeded $100BB in 2015 and depend heavily on ammonia fertilizers. Ammonia production consumes 1% of the world’s total energy supply and millions of tons are imported each year. An innovative bioelectrocatalyzed process is being developed using immobilized mutated nitrogenase enzymes to directly convert atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia at standard conditions, 25° C and 1 atm, and without the need for natural gas. This technology utilizes an enhanced enzyme and advanced enzyme immobilization method for increased production efficiency. The Phase I project developed a new enzyme and polymer support structure which enables direct conversion of nitrogen to ammonia under mild conditions without the need for added chemicals; only electricity and water are required. The system exhibited significantly higher efficiency than competing technologies. The Phase II project will develop a commercial process for the enzyme/polymer system. This will include scaling up production of the enzyme and determining process conditions for maximum productivity. This technology is intended for the commercial fertilizer industry, which currently uses large, expensive plants for centralized production, consuming vast amounts of natural gas and generating significant CO2 pollution. This technology could also be used to generate alternative ammonia-based fuel and ammonia-based commodity chemicals. The Federal Government would benefit from this technology by reducing dependence on foreign imports, and increasing domestic production of a commodity chemical. Ammonia is used as key component in explosives and propellants and is essential for national security. Distributed production will lower the vulnerability of this resource. The key benefit for the customer is lower capital and operating cost. Building new ammonia production plants cost >$2BB with considerable infrastructure costs to ship the ammonia. The primary method of transportation is pipe to truck distribution, although some is still carried via railway. The feature that set our technology apart from the current Haber-Bosch process is the ability for low-cost distributed production.

The agriculture sector is critical to global security, as it provides food security and employment across the world. However, the sector is both vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions. As such, all countries must consider the urgent need to respond to climate change and build a resilient and sustainable global food chain and food supply. As one of the largest economies in the world, the US has a large role in the global food chain, and therefore, has a responsibility to fortify its food system against the increasing threats of global climate change. US agricultural policy is largely determined by the Farm Bill, which will be reauthorized this year for the next five years. Thus, Congress has the unique opportunity to improve US agriculture policies that determine the costs of US production, farm earnings, agricultural contributions to global climate change, and ultimately dictate what we eat. This paper is targeted to those legislators tasked with the 2023 Farm Bill reauthorization, namely the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, and will address how two of the biggest components of the Farm Bill, Agriculture Risk (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs, can be reformed. Ultimately, we recommend capping the ARC and PLC award per farm and reinvesting the savings in regenerative agriculture practices. Supporting regenerative agricultural practices would help the US food system become more resilient, thereby strengthening global food security and sustainability, setting a powerful example for the rest of the world.

Rich countries' agricultural trade policies are the battleground on which the future of the WTO's troubled Doha Round will be determined. Subject to widespread criticism, they nonetheless appear to be almost immune to serious reform, and one of their most common defenses is that they protect poor farmers. The authors' findings reject this claim. The analysis uses detailed data on farm incomes to show that major commodity programs are highly regressive in the United States, and that the only serious losses under trade reform are among large, wealthy farmers in a few heavily protected subsectors. In contrast, analysis using household data from 15 developing countries indicates that reforming rich countries' agricultural trade policies would lift large numbers of developing country farm households out of poverty. In the majority of cases these gains are not outweighed by the poverty-increasing effects of higher food prices among other households. Agricultural reforms that appear feasible, even under an ambitious Doha Round, achieve only a fraction of the benefits for developing countries that full liberalization promises, but protect U.S. large farms from most of the rigors of adjustment. Finally, the analysis indicates that maximal trade-led poverty reductions occur when developing countries participate more fully in agricultural trade liberalization.

Part I. Introduction and General Considerations: 1. The power of the WTO dispute settlement system Rufus Yerxa 2. The WTO dispute settlement and general international law Georges Abi-Saab Part II. The WTO Dispute Settlement System: Its Processes and its Institutions: 3. The WTO dispute settlement system and its operation: a brief overview of the first 10 years Bruce Wilson 4. The role of the Dispute Settlement Body in the dispute settlement process Bozena Mueller Holyst 5. Consultations and the panel process in the WTO dispute settlement system Gabrielle Marceau 6. Contingent trade remedies and WTO dispute settlement: Some particularities Jesse Kreier 7. The making of the 'World Trade Court': the origins and developments of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization Peter Van den Bossche 8. Special challenges at the appellate stage: a case study Valerie Hughes 9. The reasonable period of time for compliance with the rulings and recommendations adopted by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body Werner Zdouc 10. Implementation of panel and Appellate Body rulings: an overview Brendan McGivern 11. A brief introduction to countermeasures in the WTO dispute settlement system Yves Renouf Part III. The WTO Dispute Settlement System: Systemic and Other Issues: 12. The role of lawyers in the WTO dispute settlement system Giorgio Sacerdoti 13. Jurisdiction in WTO dispute settlement Joel Trachtman 14. Due process in WTO disputes Andrew Mitchell 15. Standards of review in WTO panel proceedings Matthias Oesch 16. Administration of evidence in WTO dispute settlement proceedings Scott Andersen 17. Confidentiality issues under the DSU: fact-finding process versus confidentiality Olivier Prost 18. Panels' consultations with scientific experts Mireille Cossy 19. Amicus curiae participation in WTO dispute settlement James Durling and David Hardin 20. Suspension of concessions and retaliation under the Safeguards Agreement Raimund Raith 21. Compliance with WTO dispute settlement decisions: is there a crisis? John Magnus 22. DSU review: A view from the inside Celso de Tarso and David Evans Part IV. Annexes: Annexes I-V: Selected statistics: The first ten years of the WTO Annex VI. Biographical note on contributing authors Annex VII. Table of cases.

The contents of this commentary are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or the US Department of Health and Human Services. In our review of animal models for diseases caused by Francisella tularensis, Burkholderia mallei, or Burkholderia pseudomallei, we identified several scientific gaps that need to be filled before any one model will stand up to regulatory scrutiny (this issue). These range from a lack of well-characterized challenge material to the absence of data on appropriate treatment triggers, both of which are necessary to support regulatory qualification of a model in accordance with the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) ‘‘Animal Rule’’ (21 CFR 314.610 and 21 CFR 601.91). The Animal Rule provides a regulatory approval pathway for candidate medical countermeasures (MCMs) when human efficacy data are impossible to obtain due to ethical reasons. This alternative regulatory pathway is especially critical for scientists and developers of MCMs for chemical, biologic, and radiologic or nuclear threats (CBRN) and emerging infectious diseases. To support the development of novel MCMs and meet the FDA’s Animal Rule requirements, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), established the Nonclinical Development Network (NDN) to support and accelerate animal model research and development. However, in the 2 years since the NDN was established, we and others have observed 3 areas that still need improvement—specifically, data sharing, data integration, and research coordination. Public and private entities must come together to resolve these challenges. In this commentary, we recommend several policies that could improve research coordination and enable resources to be leveraged across government agencies and their academic and industry partners. Under Federal Acquisition Regulations, the US government (USG) retains unlimited rights to data that are generated under the contracts it supports. This unfettered access to data and information should be the basis for a similarly unrestricted flow of information across the USG. Sharing data and information will allow for the timely identification of scientific and regulatory gaps, reduce the probability of redundant USG funding of studies, and ultimately reduce the number of animals that are used for experimentation. Due to the relative immaturity of animal models for Burkholderia, the USG has an opportunity to effectively implement processes for data sharing prior to engaging in a significant body of work. USG agencies that anticipate supporting Burkholderia model development could introduce common provisions in their contracts to ensure that contractors and grantees understand that their data and methods can, and will be, exchanged across agencies. The barriers to implementing such data-sharing processes should be low since this type of research and development work would be conducted independent of product development and therefore would not be deemed confidential or proprietary. BARDA and other agencies within the USG have begun to incorporate these provisions into their nonclinical development contracts. The USG has supported the development of MCMs for the prophylaxis and treatment of anthrax exposure/infection, including vaccines, antibiotics, and antitoxin therapies. Due to the diverse nature of the anthrax MCM portfolio, many animal efficacy experiments have been conducted. As one approach to addressing some of the regulatory uncertainties regarding the development of MCMs, BARDA engaged its contractors and requested the integration of data from control animals challenged with Bacillus anthracis to conduct a meta-analysis of the data. As a result, data from a larger number of animal studies were obtained and model parameters were effectively refined with greater statistical rigor. This allowed for the identification of reproducible markers of disease that have aided in developing and further characterizing an animal model of anthrax. For pathogens where there are limited animal efficacy data being generated in the context of products, it is imperative that policies and a framework be established that allow for a similar integration of experimental data. Optimally, data integration would extend to all USG agencies conducting animal model

Comment on “Political Economy of Agricultural Reform in Japan under Abe's Administration”

Exporting tobacco addiction from the USA

Australia's agricultural production and trade policies affecting U.S. farm exports.

Recent developments in American agricultural and trade policy suggest that the US is backing away from its position as a staunch supporter of freer trade. In the long run, this action will weaken the competitive position of US agriculture and the other protected sectors of the US economy, as was the case when the US did this in the 1920's. It will also clearly harm US trading partners, such as Canada. We'll discuss the direct impacts of the Farm Bill on Canada in another, forthcoming special report. However, for our purposes in this report, the more immediate impact is to deter developing countries from pursuing freer trade as a means of increasing economic growth and improving standards of living. Support for freer trade from developing countries is essential if the current round of WTO is to achieve meaningful gains in trade liberalization. In turn, trade liberalization is absolutely required if low cost/resource rich countries such as the US and Canada are to have prosperous agri-food sectors. Current US policy initiatives give developing countries every incentive to retreat from liberalized trade to highly protectionist policies, just as outlined by Raoul Prebisch nearly 40 years ago. The impact of current US agricultural policy initiatives is to weaken the Doha agenda by forcing developing countries to unilaterally liberalize trade without any significant concessions from the US. This places developing countries in a very difficult position, and dramatically reduces the prospects for future gains through freer trade. In this special report, we outline the following issues that will impact the world agri-food trade context in the coming years: * International trade in primary commodities from the developing country perspective * The US Farm Bill and recent US trade policy initiatives * The agenda for the Doha Round of WTO * Impact of US policy initiatives on the success of WTO

How much do non‐tariff measures (NTMs) affect U.S. agricultural exports? While countries maintain a large and diverse set of NTMs to safeguard the health of plants, animals, and humans, policymakers and regulatory bodies may neglect the impact these measures have on international trade. This paper evaluates the impact of two broad types of NTMs important to U.S. food and agricultural exports: sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBTs). We construct a new database detailing the more prominent SPS and TBT measures impacting U.S. exports as highlighted in the Office of the United States Trade Representative's (USTR) National Trade Estimate (NTE) report from 2007 to 2021. Using a theoretically consistent gravity equation, we find that SPS and TBT measures reduce U.S. agricultural exports by 34.5%, on average, equivalent to a 16.4% ad valorem tariff. However, we find little evidence that these NTMs significantly affect the probability of U.S. exports or export survival in destination markets (i.e., the probability of export failure) suggesting that these measures primarily impact variable trade costs and the intensive margin of trade.