Abstract
In many developed countries agricultural protection is a core feature of public policy either for domestic political considerations or reasons of food security. The latter concept was initially popularized by the Japanese government as part of its quest for comprehensive security and Japan currently has an established target of 45 percent self-sufficiency in agricultural products.1 Political considerations also weigh heavily. Farmers are well organized and influential enough to obstruct liberalization even though their total numbers are relatively insignificant compared to total workforce. With decades of government handouts and protection behind them, the farming sector is not internationally competitive to survive liberalization and farmers are unprepared to abandon the farms to move into competitive industries.
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Notes
Merlinda D. Ingco and John D. Nash, “What’s at Stake? Developing-Country Interests in the Doha Development Round,” World Bank Seminar, Washington DC, 2002.
See David Orden, Rashid S. Kaukab and Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla, Liberalizing Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Issue Brief (November 2002).
Anderson, K., “The Challenge of Reducing Subsidies and Trade Barriers,” paper presented at a Roundtable in Copenhagen (May 24–28, 2004), p. 27.
CAP became official European policy in January 1992 and its main objectives are to balance supply and demand both within and outside the European Community; to provide farmers with a fair income; to stabilize agricultural markets by protecting farmers from activities of price speculators; and to ensure equitable supplies to consumers. See Gionea, J., International Trade and Investment: An Asia-Pacific Perspective (Sydney, Australia: McGraw-Hill, 2003), p. 183.
Wiener, J. Making Rules in the Uruguay Round of the GATT: A Study of Internal Leadership (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 88–9.
In February 2003, at the Franco-Africa Heads of State Meeting in Paris, the French President proposed a temporary halt to subsidized agriculture exports to Africa but this only raised new fears that surplus production will be diverted elsewhere. Critics also questioned the “WTO compatibility” of such targeted trade preference. See Faizel Ismail, “On the Road to Cancun: A Development Perspective on EU Trade Policies and Implications for Central and East European Countries,” The Journal of World Investment, vol. 4, no. 4 (August 2003), p. 579.
Nash, J., “Issues and Prospects for Agricultural Trade Liberalization in the Doha Development Agenda,” seminar paper presented at the World Bank, Washington, DC (April 2003).
Yeutter, C., “Bringing Agriculture into the Multilateral Trading System,” in Bhagwati, J. and Mathias Hirsch (eds), The Uruguay Round and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Arthur Dunkel (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 65–6.
Nash, J., “Issues and Prospects for Agricultural Trade Liberalization in the Doha Development Agenda,” seminar paper presented at the World Bank (April 2003), p. 9.
Schott, Jeffrey J., The Uruguay Round: An Assessment (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, November 1994), p. 48.
Hoekman, B., “Cancun: Crisis or Catharsis?,” The World Bank (September 20, 2003) mimeo, p. 2.
See for example, Gordon, Bernard K., “A High-Risk Trade Policy,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 82, no. 4 (July/August 2003), p. 105.
Hoekman, B., Constantine Michalopoulos and L. Alan Winters, “More Favorable and Differential Treatment of Developing Countries: Towards a New Approach in the WTO,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3107 (August 2003), p. 9.
Anderson, K. and Will Martin, “Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda,” paper prepared for a workshop prior to the Annual Conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Coffs Harbour (February 8, 2005), pp. 10–11.
Konandreas, P., “Incorporating Constrained Flexibility in Tariff Reductions: A Dynamic Formula,” unpublished paper (July 9, 2004) p. 6.
Anderson, K. and Will Martin, “Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda,” paper prepared for a workshop prior to the Annual Conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Coffs Harbour (February 8, 2005), p. 1.
Olson, M. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).
Hoekman, B., Francis Ng and Marcelo Olarreaga, “Agricultural Tariffs or Subsidies: Which are More Important for Developing Countries,” The World Bank Economic Review, vol. 18, no. 2 (2004), p. 186.
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© 2006 S. Javed Maswood
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Maswood, S.J. (2006). The Doha Round and Agricultural Liberalization. In: The South in International Economic Regimes. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230626270_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230626270_6
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