Agricultural Trade Implications of European Community Enlargement: North America Common Market

Membership in the European Community (EC) for Greece, Spain, and Portugal may reduce trade between the United States and the EC in selected commodities; prospects for a North American Common Market are not bright; and the diversion of agricultural crops from export to fuel alcohol production would very likely increase, rather than reduce, balance-of-payment deficits for the United States and Brazil. The first meeting of the Consortium on Trade Research, established by the Economics and Statistics Service's International Economics Division and several universities, focused on and continues to analyze these and other global topics.Trade, Research, European Community, North American Common Market, Fuel alcohol, International Relations/Trade,

Overview: Globalizing Food Chains: Producer, Company, and Policy Responses

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,

Tracking Foodborne Pathogens from Farm to Table: Data Needs to Evaluate Control Options

Food safety policymakers and scientists came together at a conference in January 1995 to evaluate data available for analyzing control of foodborne microbial pathogens. This proceedings starts with data regarding human illnesses associated with foodborne pathogens and moves backwards in the food chain to examine pathogen data in the processing sector and at the farm level. Of special concern is the inability to link pathogen data throughout the food chain. Analytical tools to evaluate the impact of changing production and consumption practices on foodborne disease risks and their economic consequences are presented. The available data are examined to see how well they meet current analytical needs to support policy analysis. The policymaker roundtable highlights the tradeoffs involved in funding databases, the economic evaluation of USDA's Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) proposal and other food safety policy issues, and the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach toward improving food safety databases.food safety, cost benefit analysis, foodborne disease risk, foodborne pathogens, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), probabilistic scenario analysis, fault-tree analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,