Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Nandita Dasgupta, UMBC
India’s food price inflation has been a major driving factor behind the country’s accelerating inflation over the past few years.
In particular, agricultural food prices rose sharply during 2011. Read more…
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…
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…
Author: Risti Permani, University of Adelaide
Videos showing Australian cattle being subjected to inhumane treatment in Indonesian abattoirs have prompted calls for an immediate ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia.
But is banning Australia’s only option? Read more…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…