The Transformation of the Spanish Livestock System in the Second and Third Food Regimes

The present paper contains an analysis of the special characteristics of livestock systems in Spain, in the context of the domestic and international food relations that prevailed during the so‐called Second and Third Food Regimes. Spanish livestock is an interesting case because patterns of meat production and consumption have changed dramatically since the 1960s, as Spain has become one of Europe's major meat producers. There were also successive periods of transformation in Spain throughout the historical periods analysed herein, from an extensive to an intensive industrial model as well as from a domestically focused to an internationally oriented sector. In particular, the international context has been crucial in the development of Spanish livestock because of Spain's dependence on imported livestock feed and the increasing relevance of exports, especially to other European countries following Spain's accession to the European Union in 1986.     

The Spanish path of agrarian change, 1950–2005: From authoritarian to export‐oriented productivism

The aim of this study is to determine whether the evolution of Spain's agrarian change, between 1950 and 2005, exhibits any features important enough to differentiate it from the common model of developed countries in Western Europe. On the one hand, the Spanish agrarian transformations share the main features of the changes in Western Europe: technological innovation, increased production and productivity, the diminishing importance of the agricultural sector, close integration with the industrial sector, and a high environmental impact. On the other hand, a series of important peculiarities can be observed in Spain's agrarian change: strong expansion of intensive livestock farming; the role of increased irrigation in explaining the transformation of agriculture; policies that offered very little support to the agricultural sector under a dictatorship that denied a voice to farmers; and the prominent role of agriculture in the economy despite its small contribution to GDP.     

Modelling of aid motivation using time series data: The case of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

In 1984 the Jackson Report on Australia's overseas aid programme, in part, focused attention on objectives and priorities in the aid programme. There is a unique aid relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea. This paper analyses what motivates Australia's provision of aid. The aid motivation literature addresses this issue by employing cross‐section data to all recipient countries, thus imposing uniformity on them. It is argued in this study that time series analysis is required to answer the question of aid motivation. The econometric results obtained by testing the recipient need and donor interest models provide support for both. Applications of non‐nested tests indicate acceptance of the recipient need model and rejection of the donor interest model.     

Some Lessons from the Modelling of the Spanish Rice Market

Spanish accession to the European Comminity (EC) will lead to many changes in Spain's agricultural sector. Predicting the nature of these changes is difficult because the new policy regime differs significantly from historic Spanish policies. In this paper, conventional econometric models of the Spanish rice sector are constrated with a model designed specifically to reflect the pervasive impact of Spanish rice policies. This policy model predicts the historical evolution of production, consumption and trade more accurately than the conventional models. However, the policy model cannot be used to predict the impact of the radical policy changes in Spain resulting from the introduction of the EC rice regime because the historical relationships no longer hold. It is argued that alternative approaches relying more on institutional analysis and expert opinion need to be developed to understand the future of the Spanish rice sector.     

Some lessons from the modelling of the Spanish rice market

Spanish accession to the European Comminity (EC) will lead to many changes in Spain's agricultural sector. Predicting the nature of these changes is difficult because the new policy regime differs significantly from historic Spanish policies. In this paper, conventional econometric models of the Spanish rice sector are constrated with a model designed specifically to reflect the pervasive impact of Spanish rice policies. This policy model predicts the historical evolution of production, consumption and trade more accurately than the conventional models. However, the policy model cannot be used to predict the impact of the radical policy changes in Spain resulting from the introduction of the EC rice regime because the historical relationships no longer hold. It is argued that alternative approaches relying more on institutional analysis and expert opinion need to be developed to understand the future of the Spanish rice sector.     

Symposium on Infant Industries: A Comment

This paper uses the fiscal response framework to investigate the extent to which different categories of foreign aid flows, namely project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid, displace public savings and affect the recipient country's dependence on aid, using time series data for Côte d'Ivoire for the period 1975–99.The results indicate that, in general, project aid flows tend to reduce public savings and worsen Côte d'Ivoire's dependence on aid more than the other categories of aid flows. This finding therefore suggests that accounting for aid heterogeneity in aid studies as well as aid policies design and implementation could be crucial in improving aid effectiveness to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.     

U.S. food aid and American exports to recipient countries during the Cold War

In this article, we test to what extent the food aid granted by the U.S. during the Cold War was strategically motivated and used to promote U.S. interests. Using the data for the period 1971–1990, we investigate whether U.S. wheat aid had an effect on recipient countries’ total import of American products. The evidence we provide suggests a positive and robust relationship and thus it is consistent with the argument that U.S. food aid helped to create larger markets for U.S. producers.     

Food aid,food policy and the Uruguay round: implications for Bangladesh

The relationship between the effects of food aid and those of the completion of the Uruguay Round of the GATT are studied in this paper, focusing upon the food aid recipient countries, and taking Bangladesh as an illustrative example. It is argued that, among other factors, the magnitudes of these effects depend crucially on the policy environment within the food aid recipient country itself, particularly the government's policy with respect to commercial food imports. It is shown that when the quantity of Bangladesh's commercial food imports is controlled by the government, the benefits derived from food aid are smaller than when these imports are liberalised. Likewise, the negative effects that the Uruguay Round may be expected to have on Bangladesh will also he larger if commercial food imports are subject to quantitative controls than if they are liberalised. The effects the Uruguay Round will have on Bangladesh will also depend on the way food aid donors respond to the Round. If donors reduce the volumes of food aid, either because of reduced food surpluses resulting from lower agricultural subsidies, or in response to increased international food prices resulting from the Round, the losses incurred by Bangladesh will be magnified. But these effects will also depend heavily on whether Bangladesh itself participates in the liberalisations that are central to the Round itself. If it were to participate fully, the negative effects that the Uruguay Round would otherwise have on Bangladesh may be entirely offset by the gains Bangladesh would derive from its own liberalisation.     

Canada's Contribution to Agricultural Foreign Aid1

Taking into account both bilateral and multilateral programs, Canada's contribution to external aid, which in 1967–68 amounted to 0.65 per cent of our national income, now compares favorably with most other donor countries and by the early 1970's is expected to reach the target of one per cent recommended by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Initially concentrating on the Colombo Plan countries, in recent years Canada's bilateral aid program has been broadened to include the Commonwealth Caribbean countries and the Commonwealth and French-speaking African countries. Until recently Canada's principal approach to assisting developing countries to increase their food supplies has been indirect, through capital projects designed to develop the general economic infrastructure, as well as through food aid. Food aid, which has been devoted mainly to meeting emergency food shortages, has been the largest single item in the Canadian aid program. Recognition of the urgency of developing indigenous agricultural production, as an essential means of meeting the emerging food crisis and of stimulating overall economic growth, is being reflected to an increasing degree in Canada's current aid program by a greater emphasis on carefully planned integrated agricultural programs, involving both capital and technical assistance inputs. L'APPORT DU CANADA À L'AIDE AGRICOLE À l'ÉTRANGER: Si I'on tient compte des programmes bilatéraux et multilatéraux, la part du Canada à l'aide à l'étranger représentait, en 1967–1968, 0.65 p. 100 de notre revenu national, ce qui nous compare honorablement avec la plupart des autres pays donateurs. Vers le début des années 1970, on compte atteindre l'objectif d'un pour cent recommandé par la conférence des Nations Unies sur le commerce et le développement. Le Canada a commencé d'abord par concentrer son assistance sur les pays du Plan Colombo mais plus récemment le programme bilatéral d'assistance du Canada s'est élargi et embrasse les Antilles anglaises, de même que les pays africains du Commonwealth et l'Afrique francophone. Jusqu'à ces derniers temps, l'aide canadienne destinée à augmenter les ressources alimentaires des pays en voie de développement s'est manifestée autant de façon indirecte, par des plans d'aménagement visant à développer l'infrastructure économique générate, que par de l'assistance alimentaire directe. L'aide alimentaire, destinée surtout à pallier les situations urgentes de pénurie, occupe la principale place dans le programme canadien d'aide à l'étranger. On reconnaît aujourd'hui qu'un des moyens essentiels de fairs face à la crise alimentaire imminente et de stimuler la croissance économique globale est d'encourager le plus tôt possible le développement de la production agricole des pays en voie de développement. Cette prise de conscience se traduit de plus en plus, dans les programmes canadiens actuels d'assistance, par l'importance accrue qu'on accorde à la préparation méthodique de plans agricoles intégrés, combinant à la fois l'aide financière et technique.     

World food markets into the 21st century: commodity risk management policies

Recent concerns about future global food production seem poorly based. The rapid phase of growth in food consumption is over for most of the world's population because of increased incomes and, besides, population growth rates continue to slow. Thus, the rate of growth of food production needed in the future is much lower than it has been for the past 40 years. Production and price instability will continue, perhaps with lessened intensity because of reduced government intervention. With private agricultural interests now facing greater exposure to price and production risks, especially in developing countries, there needs to be greater emphasis on financial market instruments for managing these risks.     

Foreign Aid and the Quest for Poverty Reduction: Is Aid to Agriculture Effective?

Development statistics estimate that three quarters of the poor live in rural areas and most of them depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihood. Consequently, research focusing on economic growth and poverty reduction has found that sustainable rapid transition out of poverty requires a special emphasis on the agricultural sector. This study contributes to the debate on aid effectiveness by disaggregating total aid into subcategories and specifically investigating the relationship between aid given to the agricultural sector and poverty reduction. If agricultural development is more effective in reducing poverty than some other types of development, then foreign aid directed towards agriculture may be more efficient in increasing the well‐being of the poor than aid directed to some other sectors or uses. Our analysis uses panel data for developing aid recipient countries to empirically test this relationship. We find a significant relationship between agricultural aid and poverty reduction in our estimates.     

PPP水利工程供水价格机制研究

日渐突出的水资源供需不平衡,已成为中国经济社会可持续发展的重要制约因素。水价的杠杆作用是调节政府供水经营者用水户三方利益的重要手段,制定科学合理的水价有利于鼓励社会资本参与水利基础设施的建设,促进水资源优化配置和节约用水、保障用水户用水需求。在通过PPP物有所值评定测算的前提下,既充分考虑用水户的支付意愿和承受能力,又考虑供水经营者的成本补偿和合理收益,探究目前中国PPP模式下水利工程的水价核算情况。目前中国PPP模式下供水价格机制有所创新,但动态调整机制尚有不足。价格听证制度不断完善但公众参与程度仍需加强。     

Female Labour Supply and Intergenerational Preference Formation: Evidence for Mexico

Using a nationally representative sample for Mexico, we analyse the effect of a husband having a working mother on the probability that he has a working wife. Our results show that labour force participation by a husband's mother increases the probability of the labour force participation of his wife by 15 percentage points. The effect is mainly driven by males with less than high school education. One possible confounding factor is the effect of labour force participation of the wife's mother on the wife's labour participation decision. However, in a different sample, we do not find any effect of work force participation of wives' mothers on wives' decisions to join the labour force. Finally, we test the effect of work force participation by a husband's mother on the husband's preferences regarding child-rearing practices. We find that having a working mother strongly reduces the probability that daughters will be tasked to care for siblings and fosters preferences for a more egalitarian allocation of educational resources among children. Hence, promoting female labour force participation can have important dynamic implications, especially for developing countries.     

Food Aid and Food Security: A Cautionary Note

A simple model is presented to examine the effects of instability in global food aid supplies on foreign exchange expenditures and food availability in recipient countries. When global food prices rise, food aid recipients are doubly affected through decreased availability of food aid, and through higher costs of additional commercial imports needed to make up the shortfall. Empirical estimates of key parameters of the model suggest that countries with a high dependence on food aid may place their food security at risk.
Suit un modèle simple qui permet d'analyser les conséquences de l'instabilité des approvi-sionnements destinés à l'aide alimentaire sur les dépenses en devises étrangères et l'offre d'aliments dans les pays bénéficiaires. Lorsque le prix mondial des aliments augmente, les bénéficiaires de l'aide alimentaire subissent le contrecoup à la fois d'une aide alimentaire réduite et du coût plus éléve des produits importés pour répondre à la pénurie. Une estimation empirique des principaux parametrés du modele suggére que les pays qui dépendent fortement de l'aide alimentaire compromettent leur sécurité alimentaire.     

Water Management,Spanish Irrigation Communities and Colonial Engineers

In the nineteenth century, Spanish irrigation was studied by a number of British and French engineers, who sought to acquire knowledge that could be applied to India and Algeria. In their reports, they said that Spanish irrigation communities were run by the irrigators themselves in a totally democratic way, which was not true. Although such ideas had hardly any practical consequences in colonial India and Algeria, they did have important repercussions in Spain, where the irrigation institutions came to resemble the image they had been given by the reporters, with the best results. Through the work of Elinor Ostrom, the myth created by the nineteenth‐century reporters has also eventually become an argument in favour of irrigation projects in today's developing countries being managed by water users’ associations.     

Spatial Integration in the Spanish Mackerel Market

This article analyses the potential links between regional first‐sale markets for mackerel in Spain using fractional cointegration techniques. The results indicate that this is not an integrated market, and we demonstrate that there are no links, at least in the long term, between any of Spain's five regional markets. This result has significant implications in policy terms, as local, regional and European authorities must take into account the need to apply distinct local policies.     

The Class Dynamics of Food Sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This paper examines the class dynamics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador. It argues that the nature of contemporary demands for food sovereignty is heavily influenced by the outcomes of peasant movements’ historical and ongoing internal class dynamics. Processes of class differentiation within peasant organizations in both countries have led to the interests of certain classes predominating over or at the expense of others. Despite La Vía Campesina's projection of ‘unity in diversity’, incorporating sometimes conflicting class interests into the movement is particularly challenging. As such, class analysis must be brought back into debates around food sovereignty in order to gauge (and potentially further) the movement's transformative potential.     

Risk aversion and land allocation between annual and perennial crops in semisubsistence farming: a stochastic optimization approach

This article analyzes the effect of production uncertainty on farmland allocation decisions between perennial and annual crops, focusing on a representative farmer's attitude toward risk. A dynamic stochastic optimization model that considers net planting—the difference between new plantings and removals of perennial crops that achieve full production cycle—is used. The effect of uncertainty on the representative farmer's decisions to increase or decrease perennial crops’ acreage, on the optimal path, is examined. Our results reveal that the response of optimal path of net planting to uncertainty related to perennial crop production is highly affected by the farmer's attitude toward risk. A risk‐averse or a low‐risk loving farmer tends to reduce land allocation to perennial crops under uncertainty, while a high‐risk loving farmer will do exactly the opposite. Also, due to disutility of farming, the farmer tends to reduce land allocation to perennial crops when prices are high enough for him to attain a desired income level expectation. One implication of this research is the need for mechanization—in sub‐Saharan countries in particular—that increases per‐acreage yield and output in semisubsistence agriculture.     

Food Aid, Food Prices, and Producer Disincentives in Ethiopia

Although the short-term aims of food aid are well conceived, strong concerns have been voiced regarding the long-term impacts of such aid on incentives for agricultural producers in recipient countries. This article examines the statistical link between food aid shipments and food prices in Ethiopia over the period 1996–2006. Monthly data from three markets and three commodities are used to estimate a system of seemingly unrelated regression models for food prices. Results indicate that previous year food aid shipments reduce prices in all producer and consumer markets. These effects, however, appear to be limited to the set of internationally traded commodities that are domestically marketed. A recursive regression procedure is used to identify the food aid threshold at which a negative aid effect emerges. Food aid shipments that constitute less than 10% of domestic production appear to be benign, but shipments above this level show signs of being disruptive to local markets. We use a simple policy simulation to argue that production-sensitive targeting, e.g., conditioning food aid on local food production, would help to circumvent disincentive effects.