International Food Policy Research Institute

International Food Policy Research Institute

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Globalization and Markets Research 2020 Vision Countries Publications Datasets Library Events Media Learning Overview Research Program Background Major Projects Publications Donors Collaborators Contact Us IFPRI Home >> Research Themes >> Globalization and Markets

Major Projects •

WTO Negotiations and Changes in National Agricultural and Trade Policies:

Consequences for Developing Countries

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Analyzing Agricultural Policy Distortion in Developing Countries Impact of Developed Countries’ Rice, Milk, and Sugar Policies on Developing

Countries

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Agribusiness: From Parastatals to Private Trade – Why, When, And How? Assessing the Impact of Policies for Rural Service Provision on Agricultural

Marketing and Food Security in East Africa: Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda

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Operational Efficiency of the Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) in Bangladesh Food Regulation and Trade Poverty Mapping and Market Access in Vietnam Agricultural Marketing, Poverty and Nutrition in Tanzania Marketing Policies for Improved Land Management in Uganda and Ethiopia Improving Food Security in Bangladesh

WTO Negotiations and Changes in National Agricultural and Trade Policies: Consequences for Developing Countries Protection and subsidies in industrialized countries have been shown to have large negative effects on developing countries. This project analyzes the WTO negotiations and the economic effects of agricultural policies of industrialized countries on de¬veloping countries, considering both existing domestic policies and likely scenarios of policy reform. The project also looks at the trade and related policies in developing countries that can help alleviate poverty and hunger. The project has analyzed negotiating positions in the current WTO Doha Round with emphasis on the impact on developing countries and distinguished among different subgroups of the developing countries. Possible Doha Development Round negotiation outcomes are being assessed. We are also evaluating the distributional effects of global trade liberalization in selected South Asian countries and how these effects change with alternative domestic policy responses. A review is being carried out of alternative global models to determine the reasons for differences in reported effects of global trade reforms. The review and comparison of results is organized around a common model structure through which we can evaluate

alternate specifications comparable to those reported in various published studies. The MIRAGE model, developed at the Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Information Internationales (CEPII), will be used for this comparison. This is a dynamic multi-sector multi-country trade model with perfect competition in agriculture and imperfect competition in industry and services. Horizontal and vertical product differentiation are accounted for. Data coming from GTAP 6 database except for tariff protection data which comes from the MacMap database. It allows taking into account the interplay between bound MFN duties, applied MFN duties and preferential duties. Analyzing Agricultural Policy Distortion in Developing Countries Both developed and developing countries use a wide variety of domestic and trade measures aimed at agriculture. Since 1987, the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) has adopted and refined measures of annual domestic support to agriculture (Producer Support Estimates or PSEs) for their member countries. Although the OECD has started to include non-member countries (such as transition economies) in their monitoring and evaluation exercise, currently few comparable measures exist for developing countries. The objective of this study is to help fill this gap for clarifying the role of agriculture domestic and trade policies in developing countries’ economic development and to link the actual support measures with the Aggregate Measure of Support (AMS) being currently submitted to the WTO, which is used as the basis for negotiations toward trade liberalization. Assessing the effects of policy measures is important in evaluating whether agriculture is being protected or disprotected by commodity or in the aggregate. Country studies are being completed on India, Indonesia, China and Vietnam. Impact of Developed Countries’ Rice, Milk, and Sugar Policies on Developing Countries Overview The slow pace of agricultural policy reforms in developed countries under the WTO negotiations had done little to remove barriers in agricultural trade. High levels of protection and subsidies remain especially in milk sugar and rice, which are of particular interest to developing countries. These distortions have hampered efforts to increase their competitiveness and reduce rural poverty in least developed countries. Rice is, for instance, the lifeline of almost 70 percent of the world’s poor residing in Asia, while the world rice market is highly distorted. The EU, Japan, Korea, and U.S. heavily support their rice producers and exporters. Similar distortions can be found in milk and dairy products, which provide an important source of income for small dairy farmers in developing countries such as India, and in sugar, which is a major cash crop for producers in many developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Objectives The objectives of this research project are: 1. To analyze the impact of developed countries production and trade policies on developing countries’ production and trade in the milk market.

2. To analyze the impact of developed countries’ production and trade policies on developing countries’ production and trade in the rice market. 3. To analyze the impacts of developed countries’ production and trade policies on developing countries’ production and trade in the sugar market. Research This research project chooses to focus on selected players. For milk, the focus is on India’s dairy sector facing the distortion in OECD’s dairy policies. For rice, the focus is on countries such as Brazil and Indonesia, which are large rice producers and consumers, facing distortions created by rice policies in OECD countries such as the US and Japan. For sugar, the focus is on African countries facing the reforms in EU sugar policies. The research also differentiates among the different types of dairy, rice and sugar products rather than treating each as a single homogeneous product. Agribusiness: From Parastatals to Private Trade – Why, When, And How? For decades, many developing countries have experimented with dual pricing policies for agricultural commodities and this practice has led to the formation of agricultural parastatals. Despite staggering costs of operation and inefficiencies, these organizations continue to exist in many resource poor countries today. With case studies from a cross section of countries, this study aims to systematically examine the rationale, performance, and relevance of the agricultural parastatals within the context of changing global market conditions. The study has the following objectives: 1. Examine the validity of the underlying rationales for the formation of parastatals in light of changing market conditions and cost effectiveness of their operation. 2. Empirically demonstrate whether reforming the parastatals will lead to efficiency gains and release scarce public resources for alternative development investments. 3. Identify administrative and political challenges of reforming / reorganizing / replacing the parastatals by market driven institutions. 4. Offer a functional policy guideline for making effective transition to private trade. A book is being prepared based on several papers presented at a workshop held in New Delhi, India. The workshop was attended by more than 60 participants — representing senior policy makers, development practitioners, researchers, the donor community, and private sector stakeholders. Attention was focused on the experiences of three countries in which parastatals have played and are still playing a lead role in agricultural price stabilization: India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The experiences of Pakistan, which utilizes both a parastatal and government institutions; Bangladesh, which utilizes government and private institutions; Vietnam, which does not promote

public price stabilization in the conventional sense; and Africa, for contrast, were also reviewed. Assessing the Impact of Policies for Rural Service Provision on Agricultural Marketing and Food Security in East Africa: Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda (in Collaboration with DSG Division)

Rural services, including infrastructure, are necessary components for the development of markets and achievement of food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Rural services are needed to improve access of small farmers to input and output markets. Access to markets, in turn, improves the ability of small farmers to increase their productivity, generate cash income, and improve food security. The overall objective of this project is to help policymakers identify the types of rural services needed to benefit the small-scale farmers. During the first phase of the project, researchers from the three east African countries (Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda) were responsible for the research activities while IFPRI provided technical assistance. During phase two, using the individual country study results, IFPRI and its collaborators will conduct a comparative analysis of the three countries’ studies to develop a cross-country regional study. This project is being undertaken jointly with the DSG Division and East Africa Network. Operational Efficiency of the Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) in Bangladesh (in collaboration with FCN Division)

The Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) in Bangladesh annually distributes nearly 2 million tons of foodgrain, equivalent to about 8 percent of national consumption of rice and wheat. It plays critical roles in guaranteeing minimum price for the farmers, feeding the country’s poor in social safety net programs, stabilizing prices, and mitigating disaster consequences. Nonetheless, as in any public distribution system, there are incentives and opportunities for illegally diverting food for sale in the open market. To the extent that such leakages occur, the government and the food aid donors incur the cost, while the benefit accrue, not to the intended beneficiaries, but to those who gain access to misappropriate resources. This project, funded by a consortium of food aid donors, was commissioned to examine the capacity and efficiency of the PFDS from entry ports to the targeted beneficiaries of the food aid programs. This project has four main objectives: 1. To assess the capacity and efficiency of the food distribution system under the targeted food aid intervention; 2. Identify problems in the whole distribution system, starting from the entry port to the beneficiary households; 3. Determine the level of leakage, both in quantity and quality, and other lapses at various stages; 4. Determine means and ways to minimize leakage.

The analysis will include four different surveys on various aspects of foodgrain distribution, transport and storage, conducted with the assistance of a local consulting firm. Food Regulation and Trade Technical barriers are important impediments to agricultural trade. Exporters in developing countries face particular constraints in meeting rising technical standards in food markets and there can be a political economy dimension leading to misuse in some cases of technical regulations to close off trade opportunities. The purpose of this project is to provide analysis of SPS, TBT and TRIPS issues as they affect rural development, poverty alleviation, and food security in developing countries. These issues have multiple ramifications for developing countries, related to domestic plant, animal and human health, to their possible access to higher-income markets, administrative costs of managing the new rules, changes in production costs related to patenting of seeds, agrochemicals, and new processes. This line of work has focused on, and will continue to monitor, changes in the WTO process (including implementation issues, dispute settlement and negotiations). Work is also being undertaken on design of regulations to achieve technical standards in the least-tradedistorting manner. The technical barriers facing agricultural exports of selected developing countries will be evaluated with the objective of enhancing trade opportunities. Poverty Mapping and Market Access in Vietnam This project extends work on poverty mapping in Vietnam through collaborative exploration of the relationship between poverty, market access and other Geographical Information System (GIS) variables. Phase I included three training courses – using Stata for survey data analysis, an introduction to GIS, and poverty mapping using survey and census data. In Phase II, a small group from the training course was involved in collaborative research with staff from IFPRI and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS, United Kingdom) to estimate the incidence of poverty and inequality at the district and possibly commune level using a 33% sample of the 1999 Census. GIS analysis was used to examine the linkages between poverty on the one hand and market access and other GIS variables on the other. Agricultural Marketing, Poverty and Nutrition in Tanzania (in collaboration with FCN Division)

This project is designed to use existing data sets to analyze changes in regional poverty, using nutrition mapping and GIS analysis of poverty and marketing access. The project will include three one-week training courses on survey data analysis, geographic information systems, and poverty mapping methods. The research component includes three types of analysis. 1) Household survey data and three Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) will be used to assess changes in regional poverty and inequality over the 1990s. 2) Household survey data and census data will be used to evaluate the feasibility of small-area estimates of nutritional status (nutrition mapping). 3) GIS analysis will be used to examine the relationship between

market access and agro-climatic factors and the spatial distribution of poverty. The project is a collaborative effort between researchers at MTI Division and FCN Division. Marketing Policies for Improved Land Management in Uganda and Ethiopia Land degradation problems-including soil nutrient depletion, soil erosion, and deforestation-are a growing concern in many East African Countries. Declining fallow periods, very low use of inorganic fertilizer, and limited use of organic inputs are well known to be the proximate causes of deterioration of land quality. However, underlying these proximate causes, there are fundamental markets and public policy related factors that can affect how land and other natural resources are managed in a country. For example, limited access to markets and other rural service provisions, especially agricultural extension services, may lead to poor farming practices, which results in poor land management and low agricultural productivity. With increasing population pressure, the low productivity of land forces farmers to find alternative ways to increase food production, which often leads to a reduction in fallow periods and expansion in area under cultivation, causing soil nutrient depletion and deforestation. The research projects in Uganda and Ethiopia seek to address these issues. By analyzing various market-related factors that contributes to land degradation, these projects will identify the policy options to increase agricultural productivity, reduce poverty, and ensure sustainable use of natural resources in the two countries. The research component of these projects focuses on the structure, performance, and characteristics of agricultural marketing systems that indirectly influence soil fertility and land management practices. The specific objectives are to: Characterize the structure of agricultural marketing systems for major input and output markets in both countries;  Identify the major constraints to the development of agricultural marketing systems;  Analyze policy options, such as investment in infrastructure and institution building, to improve the performance of agricultural marketing and distribution;  Strengthen the capacity of collaborators in both countries to develop and implement market research, based on state of the art analytical tools; and  Increase awareness of the underlying causes of land degradation problems and appropriate strategies for their resolution. 

Increasing the productivity of African agriculture and increasing the income of small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa crucially depends on the efficient function of the input and output marketing system. The research and outreach components of this multicountry project will provide information for designing programs and policies to achieve this objective. Improving Food Security in Bangladesh

This project, working with the Ministry of Food, was designed to strengthen food security in Bangladesh through four major activities: providing food policy advisory services, conducting policy-oriented research, training government and private sector food grain personnel in policy analysis, and disseminating research results to a wider audience. Research on markets focused on price stabilization mechanisms, the impact of India's food policy and cross-border trade, the rice procurement system, public stock policy, and food aid. Other research studies conducted together with IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division, included studies on public targeted food interventions, and the effects of the 1998 flood on food markets, rural incomes, consumption, and nutrition. The project also provided support for a major task force on a Comprehensive Food Security Policy for Bangladesh. Training and outreach activities included annual food policy courses in Dhaka and the United States, workshops on key policy issues for senior government officials and local computer training courses. © Copyright and Fair Use | Send Feedback IFPRI is supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) TOP of the page