Are higher food prices here to stay?

A man stands by a stand at Ali Mellah market in Algiers on July 27, 2011. Faced with crumbling regimes across the Arab world, Algeria has dramatically boosted its grain imports to contain social unrest ahead of Ramadan, when food prices traditionally shoot up. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Ron Duncan, ANU

Does the recent upturn in grain prices, or more generally food prices, signal a permanent reversal of the long-term downward trend in the real prices of foodstuffs?

This question seems to underlie most comments on the recent food price increases — and, incidentally, commentary on the 2006–08 upturn in primary commodity prices. Read more…

Australian–Indonesian livestock trade: Ban the bans

Hundreds of farmers sell their cattle at the Beringkit traditional market in Mengwi on the resort island of Bali. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Raymond Trewin, ANU

Trade bans often signal a lack of ideas or an attempt to constrain market forces, driven by the more vocal or influential rather than evidence-based policy analysis.

The recent proposed ban on livestock exports to Indonesia seems a prime example of this situation, with a ‘NineMSN’ survey of the issue indicating more than 50 per cent of respondents are against the ban. Read more…

Japan’s early decision on the TPP: Pie in the sky or credible commitment?

Kan's stands after staring down a no confidence challenge.

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Given that Prime Minister Kan has survived the vote of no confidence in his government on Thursday, he may be in a position to make good on the commitment he made at the recent G8 summit to decide Japan’s possible participation in the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) at an early date.

The subject came up in the conversation between Prime Minister Kan and President Obama. Read more…

World trade policy in crisis

Protesters shout slogans during an anti-WTO protest in front of the trade ministry in Jakarta. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Philippa Dee, ANU and Shiro Armstrong, ANU, Columbia University

The Doha Development Round of World Trade Organisation trade negotiations is in deep trouble and could become the first Round to fail.

What will happen if Doha fails? Read more…

Industrial vs arable land zoning in China: the BYD case

A Chinese worker cleans a BYD made car for a motor show. AAP.

Author: G.E. Anderson, UCLA

Last October I wrote about a situation in which BYD, the private automaker from Shenzhen, was punished for attempting to build a factory on farmland near Xi’an.

BYD was fined about US$435,000, and seven buildings, on which it had already begun construction, were confiscated and ordered to be destroyed. Read more…

Indonesia: why food self-sufficiency is different from food security

An Indonesian farmer plants rice seedlings in a paddy field, in Bogor, West Java province. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Peter Warr, ANU

The recent volatility of international food prices has reinforced the mistrust felt within many food-importing countries towards international markets as suppliers of affordable food.

One possible response is to become less reliant on food imports. Concern about food security thus becomes transformed into concern about food self-sufficiency.

Read more…

TPP off Japan’s trade agenda for the time being

In this photo, a farmer checks leeks cultivated in a vinyl house in the earthquake and tsunami-stricken town of Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan. Will radioactive contamination of agriculture be a long-term problem for farmers such as he? (Photo: AAP)

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Japan’s triple earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster continue to have widespread ramifications for Japan’s agricultural sector and agricultural trade policy.

No doubt, the Australian Prime Minister’s advisors will be closely monitoring developments, or the lack thereof, as she heads off to Japan on 20 April. Read more…

No breakthroughs in the Australia-Japan EPA negotiations

Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, Banri Kaieda (left), and Australian Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, hold a joint press conference in Sydney on Friday, Feb. 11, 2011. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

The Australia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations are the first real test of the Kan government’s new trade policy of ‘opening up Japan’ and a chance for it to show that it means business when it comes to agricultural trade liberalisation and economic reform.

However, if progress — or lack of it — in the new round of Australia-Japan negotiations is any guide to how successfully Japan’s revamped trade policy is being implemented, then it is difficult to be optimistic about a major breakthrough on Japan’s agricultural market access issues any time soon. Read more…

India’s seasons of inflation?

An Indian vendor takes money from customer at a market in Mumbai, India on 19 January 2011. India's headline inflation rose an annual 8.43 per cent in December on higher food prices. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Mathew Joseph, ICRIER

Food inflation is reaching new heights in India, petrol prices have seen a hike for the second time in a month and the crisis is now threatening to arrest the country’s growth momentum. But to put the blame on crop failure alone, as the government is trying to do, is erroneous.

Food inflation crossed the 20 per cent mark in December 2009 and remained at that level for several months. Read more…

Australia’s floods and farming

Transport trucks sit in floodwaters in the Brisbane suburb of Rocklea on 14 January 2011. The cost of fresh fruit and vegetables is continuing to rise after floods wiped out important growing regions and food distribution infrastructure in Queensland. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Jeff Bennett, ANU

The 2011 floods in Australia have been remarkable for their intensity and geographic spread. Records for depth, frequency and extent have been broken, all due to a La Niña event only exceeded in recorded history by one in 1917–18.

The impact on agriculture has been similarly record-breaking. From tropical north Queensland to western Victoria and across the Murray Darling Basin in the east and in the Gascoyne region around Carnarvon in the west, a wide variety of farm enterprises have been affected. Read more…

Levelling the playing field for Japanese trade policy

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan (lower C) poses with Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Michihiko Kano (lower L), Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara (lower 2nd L), Justice Minister Satsuki Eda (lower 2nd R), State Minister Kaoru Yosano (R) and other cabinet members during a photo session with his new cabinet, at his official residence in Tokyo on January 14, 2011. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA

Prime Minister Kan Naoto has successfully eliminated one major obstacle to Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in his recent cabinet reshuffle. Kan has removed Trade Minister Ohata Akihiro and replaced him with Banri Kaieda. Not only is Kaieda’s vocal support for the TPP in line with Kan’s position, but also removed is Ohata’s opposition to opening up the Japanese agricultural sector, which was undercutting Kan’s leadership.

With Banri Kaieda at the helm of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Prime Minister Kan’s government has more chance of a breakthrough on Japanese trade policy, particularly with respect to opening Japan’s agricultural markets. Read more…

Indian food stocks, prices and the exchange rate

Indian farmers harvest paddy near the Mayong village in the Morigaon district of Assam, about 50 kms away from Guwahati city, northeastern India, on 09 December 2010. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Ashima Goyal, IGDRI

The cyclical post-reform period movement in Indian food stocks has been an important element of food price stabilisation.

The average level of food stocks rose from 10.1 million tonnes (mt) in the 1970s to 13.8 mt in the 1980s and 17.4 mt in the 1990s.In July 2002, it peaked at 63 mt; 2010 was another peak at 35 mt. Shocks from liberalisation seem to have aggravated the existing dysfunctionality in the system, although correct polices offer new ways to stabilise the situation. Read more…

TPP, trade liberalisation and Japan’s farm lobby

A Japanese farmer working in a cabbage field. (Photo: Flickr user 'gullevek')

Author: Aurelia George Mulgam, ADFA@UNSW

The Japanese cabinet decided its FTA trade policy on 9th November. The ‘Basic Policy on Comprehensive Economic Partnerships’ also refers to the ‘Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (TPP), stating ‘…it is necessary to act through gathering further information, and Japan, while moving expeditiously to improve domestic environment, will commence consultations with the TPP member countries’.

It took precisely one day for Japan’s farmers’ organisation (Nokyo, or JA) to respond. Read more…