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Book (stand-alone)Agricultural trade & policy responses during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 2021
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No results found.Measures adopted around the world to contain the COVID-19 outbreak helped curb the spread of the virus and lowered the pressure on health systems. However, they also affected the global trading system, and the supply and demand of agricultural and food products. In response to concerns over food security and food safety worldwide, many countries reacted immediately to apply policy measures aiming to limit potentially adverse impacts on domestic markets. Covering the first half of 2020, the report provides an overview of short-term changes in trade patterns and policy measures related to agricultural trade that countries adopted in response to the pandemic. Despite the shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures, the efforts of governments and agricultural sector stakeholders to keep agricultural markets open and trade flowing smoothly contributed to remarkably resilient value chains. Effects on global trade in food and agriculture remained limited to short-term disruptions at the very beginning of the pandemic. Governments’ policy responses covered a wide range of measures, including export restrictions, lowering of import barriers, and domestic measures. Most of the trade restricting measures were short-lived. International political commitments were pivotal in the coordination of a global response to the crisis and in deterring countries from taking unilateral measures that could have harmed food security in other parts of the world. However, COVID-19 is still spreading and may entail severe implications for access to food and longer-term shifts in global demand and supply of food and agricultural commodities. -
Book (stand-alone)Ag-ERPs database: a novel repository of environment-related provisions for agriculture, fisheries and forestry in regional trade agreements 2024
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No results found.The relationship between trade and the environment is intricate. Trade can improve the allocation of production among countries, with an efficiency-enhancing role in natural resources use. Likewise, open markets can improve access to new technologies that make domestic production processes more cost-efficient and reduce the use of inputs as well as other environmentally harmful substances. However, economic growth due to trade expansion can have a direct impact on the environment by increasing pollution and contributing to natural resource degradation. Trade liberalization may also lead to specialization in pollution-intensive activities in some countries, especially when environmental policies are not stringent. In recent years, there has been a significant shift in how trade policies are being approached, with a renewed emphasis on balancing sustainable development and market liberalization to ensure that trade policies and environmental protection are coherent and mutually supportive. Since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, regional trade agreements (RTAs) have become a common option to further liberalize trade, growing significantly in number. RTAs have also expanded rapidly in terms of regulatory coverage and have evolved to directly referencing sustainable development and including provisions linking the environment to the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors. Based on novel dataset, this research looks into the trends in inclusion of environmental provisions related to the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors (“Ag-ERPs”) in RTAs and provides policy recommendations. -
DocumentFood and agriculture policy decisions - Trends, emerging issues and policy alignments since the 2007/08 food security crisis 2013
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No results found.The report reviews a broad range of food security and agricultural development policy decisions implemented over the period 2007 to 2012 in more than 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Selected policy decisions were analysed following FAPDA’s classification, dividing policy decisions into three main categories: producer-oriented policies, consumer-oriented policies, as well as trade-oriented and macroeconomic policies. Policy decisions reviewed included those most deb ated and most frequently implemented since the 2007/08 food price crisis. The report finds that the initial responses to the crisis tended to address immediate food security concerns with short-term, ad-hoc measures. Over the following years however, policy decisions reflected a more long-term and institutionalized approach. Governments are gradually moving from universal subsidies for food and fuel towards more targeted interventions to reach vulnerable and food insecure households. Moreo ver, a growing number of countries have shifted from short-term, ad-hoc cash or food-based interventions towards mainstreaming and institutionalizing social safety net programmes. The initial trade response was to ban or restrict exports and increase imports in efforts to achieve domestic food availability, measures which have since relaxed in support of producers. Also, Countries are increasingly establishing public food reserves to protect domestic supply in times of crisis. We also see a high degree of policy integration at the national level. However, protective trade policies at national levels have contradicted the efforts of regional food security and policy harmonization advocated by many regional economic communities.
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