International Posturing amidst Domestic Neglect: India's Agricultural Policy Examined

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-429
Author(s):  
PRIYANSHU GUPTA ◽  
R. RAJESH BABU

AbstractIndia has actively tried to shape the WTO agricultural negotiations by submitting detailed proposals, building coalitions, and even taking hard stands (veto) at critical junctures. However, this aggressive posturing presents a sharp contrast with India's domestic agricultural space, where the situation highlights policy neglect, manifesting in agrarian distress and farmer suicides. This paper analyzes contradictions between India's internationally espoused negotiating positions and its domestic policy goals. It argues that India's core focus has been to preserve status quo in the domestic food markets, driven by the political need to provide food-based consumption subsidies and manage an assured price and supply protection to its vulnerable consumers. As a result, India's interests are divergent from most of its developing country coalition partners in the G-20 as well as the G-33 groups. Our discussion has significant implications for both the domestic policy, as well as the sustainability of India's strategy in global agricultural trade negotiations.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olha Shulha ◽  

The state and contradictions of the development of the agricultural sector of the national economy are investigated. Challenges at the micro-, macro- and global levels for the agricultural sector in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have been identified. It is noted that the main problems for the domestic agricultural sector in a pandemic were: reducing the purchasing power of the population, limiting the functioning of agri-food markets during quarantine, complicating the logistics of agricultural products. It is established that changes in the markets of countries that are major importers of agricultural products from Ukraine (China, India, the EU, Turkey, Egypt) in a pandemic will have the greatest impact on the development of Ukraine’s agricultural sector. It is concluded that among all sectors of the national economy, agriculture is the least affected by quarantine restrictions. It is shown that small and medium-sized farms suffer the greatest losses in a pandemic. The tasks facing agricultural enterprises and the state in the conditions of a pandemic are determined. The strategic directions of agricultural policy in Ukraine are indicated.


1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 632-646
Author(s):  
Joseph A. McMahon

We are all aware that agriculture is important to developing countries as a source of income, employment and export earnings. To a far greater extent than in the OECD countries, agriculture it central to the economic performance of developing countries and the livelihood of their inhabitants. Rural societies in developing countries are directly dependent on the agricultural sector and urban dwellers rely on agriculture to provide food security and sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, many developing countries heavily rely on the export earnings or are highly dependent on food imports. Given the fact that the poorest and most threatened communities and countries are typically the most highly dependent, the resolution of pressing global agricultural policy and trade issues is critical to sustainable development and poverty alleviation.


1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
T. Kelley White

In the absence of agricultural policy, the behavior of the agricultural sector is dictated by market forces. Any agricultural policy, other than one of “hands off—let the market forces rule,” is dependent upon programmatic tools which in one way or another attempt to interfere or modify behavior of the sector. If it is government's objective to design and implement a set of programs which will distort market behavior so as to achieve policy goals with minimum negative side effects, it is essential that policymakers understand the kind of market environment within which the U.S. farm sector exists and how this market is likely to behave, given alternative interferences.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (8) ◽  
pp. 1418-1436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Jodoin

This article aims to understand the complex relationship between transnational pathways of policy influence and strategies of domestic policy entrepreneurship in the pursuit of REDD+ in developing countries. Since 2007, a complex governance arrangement exerting influence through the provision of international rules, norms, markets, knowledge, and material assistance has supported the diffusion of REDD+ policies around the world. These transnational pathways of influence have played an important role in the launch of REDD+ policy-making processes at the domestic level. Indeed, over 60 developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have initiated multi-year programmes of policy reform, research, and capacity-building that aim to lay the groundwork for the implementation of REDD+. However, there is emerging evidence that the nature of policy change associated with these REDD+ policy efforts ultimately depends on the mediating influence of domestic factors. This article offers an analytical framework that focuses on whether and how domestic policy actors can seize the opportunities provided by transnational policy pathways for REDD+ to challenge or reinforce the status quo in the governance of forests and related sectors.


2006 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cardwell ◽  
Christopher Rodgers

AbstractEuropean farm policy has undergone radical change in recent years, culminating in the Agenda 2000 reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy agreed in 1999 and then their Mid-Term Review in 2003. In particular, subsidy payments have been substantially ‘decoupled’ from production and switched decisively towards providing income support for farmers under a new ‘single farm payment’ scheme. These reforms have been predicated upon the need to win acceptance for Community farm subsidies in the Doha Round of WTO negotiations. This article examines the new law of the Common Agricultural Policy against the background of the domestic support reduction commitments contained in the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. It questions the extent to which the single farm payment scheme fulfils the requirements for ‘green box’ exemption from such commitments. Options for the re-negotiation of the Agreement on Agriculture are discussed, including measures to improve the justiciability of its terms and to exclude discriminatory and trade-distorting domestic support. The article also considers the implications of the recent WTO Appellate Body Decisions inUnited States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton and European Communities-Export Subsidies on Sugar. It concludes that the Community will have difficulty gaining acceptance for its reforms among WTO Members. Whatever the legitimacy of its subsidy regime within the framework of the current Agreement on Agriculture, the emergence of a strong negotiating position among developing countries, posited on opposition to the volume of farm support maintained by the Community and United States, may present even greater obstacles to the conclusion of a new Agreement on Agriculture in the Doha Round.


1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen C.W. Ames

AbstractA model of the political economy of agricultural policy formulation was used to analyze the current stalemate in the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. The combination of social welfare increasing and transferring policies in the European Community and the U.S. is one of the primary causes of the deadlock in trade negotiations. The Community's farm policy of high internal price supports, limited market access, and export subsidies represents short-term equilibria in the market for social-welfare policies which distribute benefits to producers at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Thus, the opportunity for internal reform of the CAP leading to a compromise in the GATT negotiations is problematic at best. However, international commitments to agricultural policy reform will force the Community to make concessions which will bring equivalent change in domestic policy.


1978 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 775-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry R. Nau

Food is a factor in international diplomacy as a direct instrument of policy and as a condition underlying policy. Grain trade is particularly important. For most of the postwar period, principal grain exporting countries pursued policies designed to support domestic prices, using foreign agricultural policy to dispose of accumulated surpluses and to pursue broader non-food (political and economic) objectives. Grain importing countries came to rely on cheap food supplies in international markets, neglecting incentives to stimulate domestic production. Worldwide food shortages in 1973–74 made clear the need to consider international as well as domestic food requirements. Food considerations acquired a foreign policy dimension, while foreign policy considerations sparked a debate about the use of food for power. A return to surplus conditions in world food markets reduces the opportunities for the exercise of food power, while creating the conditions to meet historically unattainable food goals. To accomplish this, a system of international coordination and review of separate national food policies may be needed. Such a system would ensure greater accountability of private groups to governments and governments to one another without relying excessively on either automatic market forces or a centralized world food authority.


1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian L. D. Forbes

In recent times the historiography of the Wilhelmine Reich has clearly reflected the influence of Eckart Kehr and of later historians who have adopted and developed his work. The Rankean dogma of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign policy) has been replaced by a new slogan, Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic policy). The resultant interpretive scheme is by now quite familiar. The social structure of the Bismarckean Reich, it is said, was shaken to its foundations by the impact of industrialization. A growing class of industrialists sought to break the power of the feudal agrarian class, and a rapidly developing proletariat threatened to upset the status quo. The internecine struggle between industrialists and agrarians was dangerous for both and for the state, since the final beneficiary might be the proletariat. Consequently agrarians and industrialists closed their ranks against the common social democrat enemy and sought to tame the proletariat, which had grown restive under the impact of the depression, by means of a Weltpolitik which would obviate the effects of the depression, heal the economy, and vindicate the political system responsible for such impressive achievements. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and others call this diversionary strategy against the proletarian threat social imperialism; and this, it is said, is the domestic policy primarily responsible for Wilhelmine imperialism.


Competitio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Akos Szerletics ◽  
Attila Jambor

The economic impacts of direct payments is a widely studied field in the literature related to the Common Agricultural Policy. This article aims to provide a systematic review of the income-related impacts of direct payments. In doing so, the article screened the academic literature on the impacts of direct payments and identified 150 relevant ones, out of which 41 were written directly on income-related effects.Relevant articles can be classified into four groups: general, distributional, stabilisation and other impacts. Most of the literature criticised the ongoing system of direct payments and their effectiveness in producing income-related policy goals. We believe that our results can be useful for researchers and policymakers in better understanding the income-related impacts of direct payments. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: Q18


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document