The changing policy environment for agriculture in the European Union

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 11. 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr Patrick WesthoffVita.Ph.D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.The EU has undergone two major expansions in just three years, enlarging from 15 members (EU-15) to 25 members in May 2004, and then adding Bulgaria and Romania in January 2007. Agriculture has played a central role in all the enlargement negotiations as a result of the significant levels of government support in the EU for the sector, the sector's importance in terms of the overall EU budget, and the large number of farmers in the new member states (NMS). A major reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was carried out in parallel to the first enlargement, and included changes to the way that agriculture was supported in the EU. Reform of the CAP is ongoing, with a timetable for the elimination of dairy quotas included in the latest reforms. As the link between production and support is broken, the policy most influencing market developments has become that relating to biofuels, whose production and consumption in the EU has expanded rapidly in recent years. In this dissertation, three papers are presented that examine aspects of each of these developments.Includes bibliographical reference

Economic Analysis of Policy Changes in the Beef and Sheep Sectors.

End of Project ReportThe work reported in this document commenced in 1997 under the auspices of the FAPRI-Ireland Partnership. It documents the development of aggregate commodity level models for the beef and sheep sectors, and their subsequent simulation under different policy and macroeconomic environments. Companion reports document the development of similar models for other commodities, and of farm level models

Making the market: How U.S. Policy influences near term agriculture and biofuel industry production and profitability under technology adoption

The beneficiaries of technology adoption in agriculture and biofuels markets in the United States are heavily influenced by domestic biofuel policies and market context. Biofuel mandates, one of the key pillars of domestic biofuel policies, may significantly alter the elasticity of demand for biofuels as well as the derived demand for maize used to produce a significant share of ethanol in the United States. Using a stochastic agriculture and biofuels model, we assess how the introduction of technology may affect the crops and biofuel markets under binding and non-binding biofuel mandates and discuss the implications for analysis of EU biofuel policies.biofuels, policy, technology adoption, mandates, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

INCORPORATING BIOFUELS INTO A PARTIAL EQUILIBRIUM MODEL OF THE EU AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

The impact of increased consumption of biofuels on agricultural markets has already been substantial, and will increase further as countries around the world seek to expand the proportion of their energy that they get from renewable sources. Models of the agricultural sector must therefore include some consideration of the demand for agricultural products for biofuels and the byproducts that are produced as part of the production process that are returned to the agricultural sector. In this paper the method of introducing biofuels into the FAPRI GOLD (grains, oilseeds, livestock and dairy) model is discussed. A scenario is run whereby the EU is assumed to introduce a binding 10% target by 2020 and the results are discussed in order to illustrate the workings of the model. The modelling effort is ongoing and planned work is discussed. The aim of the paper is to highlight major issues in building a model of this type.Biofuels, partial equilibrium model, agricultural sector, EU policy, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Model Closure and Price Formation Under Switching Grain Market Regimes in South Africa

This paper develops the structure and closure of an econometric regime-switching model within a partial equilibrium framework that has the ability to generate reliable estimates and projections of endogenous variables under market switching regimes. Models used in policy evaluation usually either ignore the possibility of regime switching using just a single method of price determination based on average effects, or incorporate highly stylised components that may not reflect the complexities of a particular market. This paper proposes an approach that the authors believe allows the incorporation of features of regime switching in a multisector commodity level model that capture salient features of the South African market and therefore are able to produce more reliable projections of the evolution of the sector under alternative shocks.Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries,

Model closure and price formation under switching grain market regimes in South Africa

This paper develops the structure and closure of an econometric regime-switching model within a partial equilibrium framework that has the ability to generate reliable estimates and projections of endogenous variables under market switching regimes. Models used in policy evaluation usually either ignore the possibility of regime switching using just a single method of price determination based on average effects, or incorporate highly stylised components that may not reflect the complexities of a particular market. This paper proposes an approach that the authors believe allows the incorporation of features of regime switching in a multisector commodity level model that capture salient features of the South African market and therefore are able to produce more reliable projections of the evolution of the sector under alternative shocks.Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

A Stochastic Analysis of Proposals for the New US Farm Bill

Most of the large scale modeling systems used in the analysis of agricultural policies produce deterministic projections. In reality, however, the agricultural sector is subject to a high degree of uncertainty as a result of fluctuations in exogenous factors such as the weather or macroeconomic variation. A stochastic approach can provide additional information to policy makers regarding the implications of this uncertainty, through the use of stochastically generated projections. This paper also shows how deterministic analysis may result in systematic errors in the projection of some variables. As an applied example, the FAPRI model of the US agricultural sector is simulated stochastically to analyse the impact of proposals for the new US farm bill.Stochastic simulation, US Farm Bill, policy analysis, Agricultural and Food Policy,

A Stochastic Analysis of the Impact of Volatile World Agricultural Prices on European and UK Agriculture

Successive Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms and trade liberalisation have led to a more market-orientated European agricultural sector, with EU commodity prices now more closely linked to world prices. As a consequence EU prices have become more volatile. Greater price volatility increases uncertainty and raises fresh challenges for projections of policy impacts in the EU. To take account of world price volatility stochastic modelling has been applied to the FAPRI-EU partial equilibrium model, which includes a UK modelling system. Stochastic modelling provides a means to capture some of the inherent uncertainty associated with agricultural production systems. By varying assumptions about certain exogenous variables, stochastic models can be used to examine the different ways markets may behave. Variable world prices are incorporated within the EU GOLD model. This process identifies the impact of a stochastic distribution of world prices on EU agriculture rather than the single point estimates in the conventional deterministic approach. The results outlined in this study demonstrate the impact of volatile world prices on EU and, in particular, UK prices and market control instrumentsAgricultural policy, Stochastic modelling, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Global Markets for Agricultural Products 2003 - 2012

Further information may be found at http://www.tnet.teagasc.ie/fapri/pubandrep2003.htmThe 2003 global baseline reflects a variety of the short-term issues that have and will continue to affect the sector. These range from crop short-falls in the northern and southern hemisphere to the continued economic weakness, from the continuing sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) difficulties in a number of countries around the world, to the unfolding agricultural policy and trade reform process. There are three major macroeconomic drivers of this baseline projection. They are (i) continued weakness in Latin American economies, (ii) recovery in most of the rest of the world -- particularly central Europe and several members of the Former Soviet Union, and (iii) a significant devaluation of the United States dollar relative to many of the other major currencies including the euro