Trade and food policy: Case studies from three Pacific Island countries

There is growing interest in the use of trade policy to create a healthier food supply. Eighty percent of chronic disease deaths occur in low and middle income countries, and a responsive food policy is an absolute necessity. In this paper we analysed three trade-related food policy initiatives to reduce the supply of fatty meat in the Pacific, in order to help public health workers understand how to effect policy change in sectors beyond the health portfolio. We found that policy uptake and implementation were easier with advocacy, tailoring the policy to the political context, the selection of policy tools that align with Government priorities (e.g. trade commitments) – ideally tools that are already used by trade policy makers in other contexts – and a broad justification for the policy initiative. Barriers to policy success included a focus only on health concerns (not taking into account policy issues of other sectors), limited engagement from other sectors in proposing and developing these cross-sectoral policies, and lack of a clear enforcement mechanism.     

Farm policies and added sugars in US diets

We examine how US farm policies for sweetener crops have affected the consumption and composition of sweeteners in the US diet. R&D expenditures have lowered the unit cost of commodities used in sweeteners, but have generated more technical progress in corn than in sugar crops, increasing use of corn in food production, ceteris paribus. Commodity programs have raised the price of sugar and decreased the price of corn. Thus, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) became an inexpensive substitute for sugar in food from 1970 on. However, the effect of policy on ingredient prices has become less important over time. Today the farm value share in sweetened food is below 5% and HFCS is a specialized input in many food items, with limited substitution possibilities. The current link between US sweetener consumption and farm policy is weak. Recent evidence from other high-income countries shows little relationship between sweetener consumption and sugar policies.     

The system-wide impact of healthy eating: Assessing emissions and economic impacts at the regional level

Encouraging consumers to shift their diets towards a lower meat/lower calorie alternative has been the focus of food and health policies across the world. The economic impacts of such changes on regions have been less widely examined, but are likely to be significant, especially where agricultural and food production activities are important for the region. In this study we use a multi-sectoral modelling framework to examine the environmental and economic impacts of such a dietary change, and illustrate this using a detailed model for Scotland. We find that if household food and drink consumption follows healthy eating guidelines, it would reduce both Scotland’s “footprint” and “territorial” emissions, and yet may be associated with positive economic impacts, generating a “double dividend” for both the environment and the economy. The economic impact however depends critically upon how households use the income previously spent on higher meat/higher calorie diets. Furthermore, the likely (but not modelled) benefits to health suggest the potential for a “triple dividend”.     

Getting rid of trans fats in the US diet: Policies, incentives and progress

Artificial trans fats in foods increase chronic disease risk in the US population. Federal nutrition label regulation enacted in 2003 requires mandatory disclosure of trans fat content on packaged foods. This action created incentives for the food industry to reduce trans fats both in response to consumer demand and through competition to maintain product reputation. Subsequent public actions include a ban on trans fat use in New York city restaurants and lawsuits against food companies, which created further incentives to remove trans fats, especially in the food service industry. Industry has reformulated packaged foods and found substitutes for restaurant fry oils and trans fats are disappearing from the US food supply. Market response extends throughout the supply chain, and has spurred research to alter oilseed crop characteristics. The widespread and relatively rapid industry response likely has improved the quality of US diets, and demonstrates the potential for policy actions to spur such improvements.     

Viewpoint: Future of food safety and nutrition - Seeking win-wins,coping with trade-offs

The possible implications of global trends such as climate change and resource scarcity on food security are high on the political agendas. While the food sufficiency aspect of food security takes centre-stage, the future of food safety and nutritional quality of diets often seems to be taken for granted. This paper builds on the results of a foresight study on EU food safety and nutrition towards 2050 to discuss potential future points of tension for food policy. Increasing food production while using fewer resources and reducing food waste while ensuring food safety are just two examples. Innovation at different levels in the food system will be needed to address future challenges. Fast technology uptake and the launch of new food-related products can put pressure on the ability to deliver timely risk assessments, the scope of which might also need to cover other legitimate factors. Future food policies need to be more sensitive to impacts on food safety and nutrition and health aspects. A holistic food systems approach must be taken to identify and discuss in advance possible tensions and trade-offs and to address them upfront in a systematic and transparent manner.     

What is driving increases in dietary quality in the United States?

Over 1994–2010, adult dietary quality in the United States increased by 10 percent. We find a shift in consumption between at-home and away-from-home food played a relatively minor role as compared to changes in demographics and educational attainment. The two largest contributors we identify include an increased usage of nutritional information and a shift away from relying heavily on price, taste, storability and ease of preparation when shopping for food. Our findings suggest nutrition policy discussions could focus on further shifting attitudes/preferences towards healthier diets while allowing consumers to better extract nutrition information when making food choices.     

Nutrition,agriculture and the global food system in low and middle income countries

The entire food value chain and diet of low and middle income countries (LMICs) are rapidly shifting. Many of the issues addressed by the nutrition community ignore some of the major underlying shifts in purchases of consumer packaged foods and beverages. At the same time, the drivers of the food system at the farm level might be changing. There is a need for the agriculture and nutrition communities to understand these changes and focus on some of their implications for health. This rapid growth of the retail sector will change the diets of the food insecure as much as that of the food secure across rural and urban LMIC’s. This short commentary contents that current research, programs and policies are ignoring these rapid dynamic shifts.     

Advancing the evidence base for public policies impacting on dietary behaviour,physical activity and sedentary behaviour in Europe: The Policy Evaluation Network promoting a multidisciplinary approach

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of global mortality. As the social and economic costs of NCDs have escalated, action is needed to tackle important causes of many NCD’s: low physical activity levels and unhealthy dietary behaviours. As these behaviours are driven by upstream factors, successful policy interventions are required that encourage healthy dietary behaviours, improve physical activity levels and reduce sedentary behaviours of entire populations. However, to date, no systematic research on the implementation and evaluation of policy interventions related to these health behaviours has been conducted across Europe. Consequently, no information on the merit, gaps, worth or utility of cross-European policy interventions is available, and no guidance or recommendations on how to enhance this knowledge across European countries exists. As part of the Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL), 28 research institutes from seven European countries and New Zealand have combined their expertise to form the Policy Evaluation Network (PEN). PEN’s aim is to advance tools to identify, evaluate, implement and benchmark policies designed to directly or indirectly target dietary behaviours, physical activity, and sedentary behaviour in Europe, as well as to understand how these policies increase or decrease health inequalities. Using well-defined evaluation principles and methods, PEN will examine the content, implementation and impact of policies addressing dietary behaviour, physical activity levels and sedentary behaviour across Europe. It will realise the first steps in a bespoke health policy monitoring and surveillance system for Europe, and refine our knowledge of appropriate research designs and methods for the quantification of policy impact. It will contribute to our understanding of how to achieve successful transnational policy implementation and monitoring of these policies in different cultural, demographic or socioeconomic settings. PEN will consider equity and diversity aspects to ensure that policy actions are inclusive and culturally sensitive. Finally, based on three policy cases, PEN will illustrate how best to evaluate the implementation and impact of such policies in order to yield healthy diets and activity patterns that result in healthier lives for all European citizens.     

The potential of diversified agroecological systems to deliver healthy outcomes: Making the link between agriculture,food systems & health

In 2014, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition recognized food system sustainability as a key condition to ensure adequate nutrition and access to healthy diets for all. Five years later, the evidence has never been more clear: despite a series of positive outcomes, our current food systems have increasingly generated severe environmental, social, and health-related costs. Many of the most severe health impacts of food systems can be traced back to the core practices of industrial food and farming systems (e.g. input-intensive agriculture; intensive livestock production; mass marketing of highly processed foods; deregulated global commodity chains). Yet alternatives exist.This article provides an overview of the key impacts generated by current food systems on human and environmental health, with an emphasis on their effects in the region of Europe and Central Asia. It then brings together evidence on how diversified agroecological systems can play a key role in meeting health and nutrition goals, while also addressing the environmental, social, and economic challenges created by current systems. Ultimately, the article sheds light on how to break away from the underlying drivers keeping current systems in place, and suggests how more diversified systems can effectively be promoted through systemic, multi-sector, and integrated policy approaches to ensure healthy diets for all.     

Dimensions of broadband policies and developments

There is a continuous discussion on the development and comparison of broadband infrastructures and broadband strategies of different countries and regions around the world. Is the US ahead of Europe, or is it the other way round, and how about East Asian countries? And, are there any policy reasons for it? The paper discusses three of the fundamental dimensions in broadband policies: Infrastructure vs. Service competition, regulatory vs. Developmental policies, and networks vs. Content prioritization. It examines the diverse combinations of these policy dimensions with respect to 7 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. The paper concludes that all three dimensions are found in the broadband policies of all the countries but that there are differences in the prominence of the dimensions in the individual countries.     

The race for telecommunication technology: The USA v Japan

Innovations in information technology are driving the USA and Japan into greater interdependence and reduced competition. However, the policies of the two countries towards supplying global telecommunications networks and towards their export earnings are diverging. This article examines the policies and history of both US and Japanese business and government towards investment in communications and computer technologies. Deregulation has been an important influence in both countries. The Japanese have responded to fierce US protectionism and competition by fundamentally changing their production strategy and turning to more offshore operations, involving many adjustments for Japanese management.     

Food consumption in Mexico: demographic and economic effects

Disaggregated demand analysis is beginning to receive increased importance in food policies for developing countries. Using household data from the 1977 Mexican Income and Expenditure Household Survey, the authors estimate the income and demographic effects on expenditures for 9 aggregate food categories. In addition, they use a probit model to explore the effect of these variables on the purchase decision for 5 high protein supplying goods. The results indicate that demographic variables, as well as income, have important effects in determining food expenditures. The authors analyze these effects and indicate the role they might play in food policy programs such as PRONAL, the National Food Programme.     

Privacy,confidentiality and computers: National and international implications of US information policy

The author assesses what the USA has been doing or not doing in recent years to develop information policies for personal record information to deal with the rapidly changing record-keeping world of public and private organizations. He reviews how well these policies have been implemented and enforced in the context of the US system of government, and compares the experience of European countries with US efforts, especially in the light of the serious debate which is emerging over restraints placed on transborder data flows by the privacy protection efforts of various countries.     

Does nutrition information on food products lead to healthier food choices?

This paper examines the link between nutrition label use and consumers’ healthier food choices. Label use is considered for the two main types of labels currently found on food products; nutrition facts panels and nutrition/health claims. This link is tested using a three-equation multivariate probit model. Data were obtained from an ad hoc survey conducted in two medium-sized Spanish cities. The results indicate that the use of nutrition information by consumers, whether this involves the fact panel or the claim labels, does influence consumer choice of healthier food products to the same extent, although different types of consumers use the various types of labels considered.     

Baseline results from the Eat,Play, Live trial: A randomized controlled trial within a natural experiment examining the role of nutrition policy and capacity building in improving food environments in recreation and sport facilities

Canadian provincial governments have introduced voluntary nutrition guidelines for recreation and sport facilities to promote healthy dietary patterns in children. This paper presents baseline data from the Eat, Play, Live (EPL) randomized controlled trial to examine whether facilities in guideline provinces had greater capacity, more nutrition policies, and healthier food environments than facilities in a province without guidelines. Facility capacity, policy development, and food environment quality were measured and compared in guideline (GF; n = 32) and no guideline facilities (NoGF; n = 17) using ANOVA and Chi-square statistics. Healthfulness of vending and concession items were rated as Do Not Sell (least nutritious), Sell Sometimes or Sell Most (most nutritious). Facility capacity scores did not differ between GF and NoGF. A higher proportion of GF had facility-specific nutrition policies compared to NoGF. GF vending machines had healthier profiles than NoGF; including a lower proportion of Do Not Sell snacks and beverages, and a higher proportion of Sell Sometimes snacks and beverages and Sell Most beverages. GF concessions had healthier profiles than NoGF; with a lower proportion of Do Not Sell snacks and beverages, a higher proportion of Sell Sometimes snacks and Sell Most beverages, and higher food environment summary scores. Recreation and sport facilities in guideline provinces had more nutrition policies and healthier food environments than facilities in a province without guidelines. However, food environments were unhealthy regardless of guideline status which may promote correspondingly unhealthy dietary patterns among children.Clinical trials registration (retrospectively registered): ISRCTN14669997 Jul 3 2018.     

Food policy reforms for sustainable agricultural development in Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan

Given the present conditions of demographic growth and the complicated transition toward market economies in Central Asia, the problems of food security and designing policies to achieve it without compromising economic growth are at the forefront of policy agendas in these countries. This paper reviews food policy reforms in Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan in the context of sustainable agricultural development. Analyzing the trends in the agricultural sector during the transition period, it identifies the major impacts of policy reforms on food security and enumerates future challenges for improving food security in these countries. It finds that despite the progress made in reforming their economies toward market-oriented ones, the three countries continue to face food insecurity to varying degrees. It concludes that there is an urgent need to further expand and deepen the reform process by enabling functioning land, labor, and financial markets.     

自然垄断产业市场结构重组的目标、模式与政策实践

为促进自然垄断产业的有效竞争 ,提高经济效率 ,许多国家都对自然垄断产业实行市场结构重组政策。本文将探讨自然垄断产业市场结构重组的基本目标 ,5种主要市场结构重组模式及其特点 ,并分析一些经济发达国家和中国在自然垄断产业实行市场结构重组的政策实践。     

WTO negotiations on agriculture and the distributional impacts for US rice farm households

The policies of wealthy countries have proven the most difficult to reform in the WTO Doha Round negotiations. Considerable emphasis has been placed on developing country impacts, but a gap in the literature remains on the stakes for rich country farmers despite the large role these countries play in global agricultural protection. The research here considers the particular case of US rice households and their sensitivity to Japanese market access reform. Using an applied general equilibrium model with multiple farm households we highlight the distributional impacts among these producers. We argue that concessions to Japan on market access make domestic reforms in rice a difficult political sale in the US since the wealthiest producers bear the largest losses. Improving our understanding of the distributional impacts and political realities of the richest countries is critical to informing the negotiating process because the gains to the world’s poor can only be realized with creative policy redress in these rich nations.     

The Impact of the Entry of Biosimilars: Evidence from Europe

Biologics represent a substantial and growing share of the U.S. drug market. Traditional “small molecule” generics quickly erode the price and share of the branded product upon entry, however only a few biosimilars have been approved in the US since 2015, thereby largely preserving biologics from competition. We analyze European markets, which have had biosimilar competition since 2006. Using our own survey, we analyze how market features and public policies predict biosimilar entry, price, and penetration, finding significant heterogeneity across countries and products. Effective buyer institutions are associated with increased biosimilar penetration. Our estimates can inform ongoing policy discussions.     

US consumers' perceptions of the importance of following the US dietary guidelines

This study examines the factors affecting perceptions by US consumers about the importance of following each type of healthy diet recommendation based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Results generally suggest that individuals from the Northeast and non-metropolitan areas, males, less educated, not on a special diet, and those who have a lower perception of the overall importance of nutrition when food shopping are generally less likely than their counterparts to perceive individual diet recommendations as important. Income, age, and body mass index also are significant factors for some individual healthy diet recommendations. Understanding consumers' perceptions about the importance of choosing healthy diets is an important preliminary step in changing dietary behavior and nutrition policies. Given worldwide trends toward Westernized diets and resulting increases in related health problems, the findings of this study may have relevance not only in the US but also globally.