Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries

Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries presents research findings based on a series of commodity studies of significant economic importance to developing countries. The book sets the stage with background chapters and investigations of cross-cutting issues. It then describes trade and domestic policy regimes affecting agricultural and food markets, and assesses the resulting patterns of production and trade. The book continues with an analysis of product standards and costs of compliance and their effects on agricultural and food trade.

The book also investigates the impact of preferences given to selected countries and their effectiveness, then reviews the evidence on the attempts to decouple agricultural support from agricultural output. The last background chapter explores the robustness of the global gains of multilateral agricultural and food trade liberalization.

Given this context, the book presents detailed commodity studies for coffee, cotton, dairy, fruits and vegetables, groundnuts, rice, seafood products, sugar, and wheat. These markets feature distorted policy regimes among industrial or middle-income countries. The studies analyze current policy regimes in key producing and consuming countries, document the magnitude of these distortions and estimate the distributional impacts - winners and losers - of trade and domestic policy reforms.

By bringing the key issues and findings together in one place, Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries aids policy makers and researchers, both in their approach to global negotiations and in evaluating their domestic policies on agriculture. The book also complements the recently published Agriculture and the WTO, which focuses primarily on the agricultural issues within the context of the WTO negotiations.

Twenty American academics and researchers contribute 16 chapters exploring issues in agricultural trade policy and evolving world production and trade patterns. Six chapters discussing the broad, cross-cutting questions raised by researchers and policymakers about agricultural trade regimes and trade performance are followed by nine detailed studies of commodities that are of considerable economic importance to many developing countries and that are representative of the export bundle of developing countries, including sugar, dairy, rice, wheat, groundnuts, fruits and vegetables, cotton, seafood, and coffee. The accompanying CD-ROM contains detailed supplementary tables and annexes. For policymakers and researchers. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR