Net Food Importers Research Articles

Helping southern net food importers after the Uruguay round: A proposal

Net food importing countries in the South are identified as losers of the Uruguay Round, having to face both rising prices for imported food and falling prices for tropical agricultural products. Cereal prices have already increased dramatically since the signing of the Agreement on Agriculture. In line with official decisions the World Trade Organization is presently exploring ways to help these countries. Based on Sir Hans Singer's understanding of the role of food aid, this paper proposes a compensatory Food Import Facility administered by the World Trade Organization to help net food importers in accordance with the Agreement on Agriculture.

Will Foreign Capital Build Food Systems in Developing Countries?

Agribusinesses around the globe have become increasingly optimistic about prospects for growth in world food trade, especially the increased demand emerging among developing countries. Rapidly growing economies across Asia and Latin America and the emergence of China as a net importer of food have added to the optimism. Growth in the world food market, however, will depend critically on the availability of capital to finance improvements in food production, processing, and distribution systems in developing countries. Thus the question arises: Will limited capital supplies short-circuit growth in the world food market? In this paper we address this question in three steps. First, we sketch the outlook for the world food market, considering some of the major shifts that appear to be changing the market's direction. Second, we consider the capital demands of the food market as it changes course. And finally, we examine the most likely sources of capital for the food market's investment needs.

The Uruguay Round and Net Food Importers

This paper attempts to assess the incremental external financing requirements occasioned by changes in world food prices, due to implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, for a sample of 57 developing countries. Based on estimates of changes in food prices due to the Round obtained in previous studies, and on detailed data on food trade by country and commodity, the present study shows that the increase in net food import costs are likely to be smaller than 4 percent of net food imports over a period of six years for the countries considered, although for some of the larger trading nations the effect may exceed US$10 million.

The Uruguay Round and Net Food Importers

This paper attempts to assess the incremental external financing requirements occasioned by changes in world food prices, due to implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, for a sample of 57 developing countries. Based on estimates of changes in food prices due to the Round obtained in previous studies, and on detailed data on food trade by country and commodity, the present study shows that the increase in net food import costs are likely to be smaller than 4 percent of net food imports over a period of six years for the countries considered, although for some of the larger trading nations the effect may exceed US$10 million.

Agriculture in Europe and in the developing countries: Interactions mainly through trade

The economic and environmental affects of European agricultural policies on the LDCs, as manifested mainly through their impact on trade, are illustrated with examples for selected commodities. The process of state-aided growth of European agriculture has passed its peak and there is little scope for further growth through exports, no matter that the net food import requirements of the LDCs will continue to grow. Part of this growth will be offset by reduced net imports of the ex-USSR. The policy reforms under way mean that Europe is likely to lose market share, as competing exporters (Australia, North America) will supply most of the additional net imports. European import demand for the major LDC tropical exportables is unlikely to be buoyant, given the nearly saturated markets in Western Europe, while the considerable scope for consumption growth in the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe is unlikely to translate into effective import demand in the foreseeable future. The LDCs are likely to turn from net agricultural exporters into growing net importers. The growing food import bill of many low-income LDCs will continue to be a major issue in world food security, particularly if food aid flows were to beadversely affected by the eventual reduction or disappearance of food surpluses in Europe and elsewhere

Agroforestry in the South Pacific region ? an overview

The developing countries of the Pacific Region consist of 27 countries and territories with a total nd area of 542 000 km2 and over 5 million inhabitants. Though highly variable in physical characteristics and land-use pattern, these countries, in general, give a higher priority for production of export crops over other agricultural crops, so that they are net importers of food. Natural forests of the region are luxuriant and floristically rich, but the level of their commercial exploitation is low. Swidden cultivation is the mainstay of subsistence livelihood, but with the increase in population, the system is now causing severe environmental and land-use problems. The major agroforestry systems and practices in the region include various forms of combination of tree crops such as coffee, coconut and cacao with nitrogen fixing trees such as Casuarina, Gliricidia and Leucaena, and food crops (mostly tubers) such as cassava, taro, sweet potato and yams. Additionally, some improvements to swidden (shifting) cultivation are also being tried in several places, the most common being the u use of Casuarina oligodon before abandoning the swidden as in PNG highlands, and intercropping food crops in tree crop stands. Land tenure system in most of the countries is the traditional clan of extended family control over land. This can have either positive or negative influence on the adoption of agroforestry practices depending on the extent and duration of ‘tenancy’ tenure enjoyed by the assignees of land. Several governments of the region are now promoting the agroforestry approach. In hilly areas with poor access, farmers are forced to produce most of their basic necessities locally. On the other hand, the lack of roads and communication facilities can pose a problem in marketing any surplus products they have. The immediate opportunity in agroforestry in the region lies in making better use of the unexplored potential of a large number of locally available trees and agricultural crops. Intercropping in tree crop stands and the taungya system seem to propromising m methods for the Pacific region.

Mobilization and Disillusion in Rural Korea: The Saemaul Movement in Retrospect

T HE REPUBLIC OF KOREA can claim one of the most impressive economic growth records the world has ever seen.' In the three decades since the Korean War, it has been transformed from a poor, densely-populated, and resource-scarce country into a substantial industrial power, and one in which the benefits of economic growth have been widely distributed.2 Unlike Taiwan, with which it vies closely and with which it is continually compared, Korea did not begin its postwar development with the advantage of a well-developed agricultural export sector.3 Since World War II, Korea has remained a substantial net importer of food and agricultural products generally.4 The outside world has naturally looked to Korea for the lessons which may be learned. Equally naturally, observers have disagreed about what these lessons might be. A few doctrinaire and influential economists have argued that the lessons lie in adherence to the principle of the freely-functioning market-economy; that South Korea has prospered principally because the government has refused to distort seriously the price signals and incentives derived from free internal and international markets. Korea has exploited its comparative advantage and developed initially through mobilizing its least scarce resource-labour. The evidence suggests, however, that the market emphasis in this interpretation is massively incorrect: that the state intervenes heavily and continually, often bypasses the market, and, in crucial sectors, exerts consid-

Saving Energy with Inorganic Solids

The current annual consumption of energy in this country is some 9.6 × 1018 J (340 × 106 tonnes of coal equivalent) and our energy production is estimated to be in the 1990s some 14 × 1018 J (about 500 × 106 tonnes of coal equivalent). Were the difference available for export at current prices, it would pay for our total net food and materials imports.

Why China Imports Wheat

The early 1960s witnessed significant changes in the commodity structure of Mainland China's international trade. One of the most striking developments during these years was that China became a net food importer, whereas in the 1950s, when Russia was her most important trading partner, China had been a net exporter of foodstuffs, and roughly one third to one half of China's exports to the Soviet Union had consisted of processed and unprocessed food. These exports were reduced to a mere 3 to 5 per cent, of China's total exports to Russia during 1961–63. Accompanying this change was a pronounced increase of China's imports of food from western countries. During 1952–60, China's purchase of “cereals and cereal preparations” had accounted for but 1 per cent, or less of her total imports from the West. This was augmented to approximately one-half of total imports in 1961–63, about one-third in 1964–66 and roughly one-fifth in 1967. The single most important item of the imported food has been wheat, amounting to four to five million metric tons a year since 1961, and coming mostly from Canada, Australia, Argentina and France.