Towards a Sustainable European Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century. Report of the CEPS Task Force on the Common Agricultural Policy in the 21st century: DOHA, mid-term review, and enlargement. CEPS Task Force Reports No. 42, 1 September 2002

The debate on agricultural policy in the EU has been very lively and politically prominent over the past months. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU has undergone major changes since it was first implemented at the end of the 1960s. Commentators suggest that the CAP changes made in the Agenda 2000 reform package were insufficient to address the problems facing the CAP in the coming years. These include enlargement, new trade negotiations and the demand by European society for a safe, sustainable agri-food system, to name but a few. This report highlights the most pressing challenges to creating a sustainable CAP for the 21st century. It focuses on strategic policy options that are closely linked to the CAP system to be ‘hands on’; but the report refrains from becoming too specific on policy details, focusing instead on the important strategic questions. It offers six recommendations for good governance, that aim to remove bureaucratic constraints from the food industry, yet strengthen consistency and good practice

Agricultural transformation: Lessons from experience

It is now fifteen years ago that the Berlin Wall fell, the start of a vast set of changes throughout the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Reforms in the Communist world had started earlier further east: first in China in the late 1970s and in Vietnam in the mid 1980s. The changes affected society in a multitude of ways. They affected the way the political and economic system operated but also the social organization of society, the psychology of the people living in the countries, and the culture of day-to-day life. In this essay I focus on how these changes affected the rural economy and the agricultural and food sector. I will discuss developments and performances of the countries during transition, the causes behind them, and the policy lessons they imply. My analysis relies heavily on work I have done with various co-authors on these issues and I refer to these publications for details on some of the issues and arguments which I will forward here somewhat too brief to do justice to their complexity. For more detailed arguments and analyses I refer in particular to Rozelle and Swinnen (2004) and Macours and Swinnen (2000, 2002).Political Economy,

The Political Economy of Agricultural Protection: Europe in the 19th and 20th Century

Important changes took place in agricultural policies in Europe in the 19th and 20th century. The dramatic nature of the changes are illustrated by two years, a century apart: 1860 and 1960. In the 1860s European nations agree on a series of trade agreements which spread free trade across the continent. In the 1960s European nations conclude an international agreement which spreads heavy government intervention and protection against imports across the continent. This paper reviews the nature and the causes of these dramatic changes in agricultural and trade policies, from the beginning of the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century, when agricultural policies are integrated in (what is to become) the European Union.Political Economy, Agricultural Policy, Europe, Historical Perspective, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Political Economy of Agricultural Distortions: The Literature to Date

The 1980s and first half of the 1990s were a very active period in the field of political economy of agricultural protection. While the past decade has witnessed a slowdown in this area, there have been very important developments on political economy in other parts of the economics profession. This paper reviews key new insights and developments in the general political economy literature and draws implications for the study of the political economy of distortions to agricultural incentives.Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Political economy, agricultural distortions, high-income countries, developing countries, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18, N50, O13, P16, P26,

Policy Reform and Agricultural Adjustment in Transition Countries

After the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 1980s, dramatic institutional and economic reforms took place in countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Agriculture was dramatically affected by these changes in policies. There are significant differences among reform policies in transition. However, most implemented substantial reforms in price and trade policies; privatization of property rights of land, farms, and agri-food businesses; and reforms of the institutions governing exchange. In this paper, we review key reforms and adjustments and discuss the causes of the differences between countries. In most cases changes in output, input use, and productivity were caused by a combination of initial conditions and reform policies. These interactions are particularly important in understanding the changes in productivity and labor adjustment patterns.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Budgetary Implications of Enlargement: Agriculture. CEPS Policy Brief No. 22, May 2002

[Introduction]. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) accounts for 45% of the total EU budget. Will its extension to Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) break the EU budget? The 10 CEECs currently negotiating for membership would increase the number of farmers by 120% and would increase the area under cultivation by 42%. It is thus widely expected that enlargement will dramatically increase the cost of the CAP. Early studies of the cost of extending the CAP to the CEECs arrived at very large numbers. But most of these studies pre-dated the 1999 Berlin Council and the Agenda 2000 reforms agreed there. These early budgetary impact estimations are now considered inaccurate. The discussion here is based on a set of more recent studies, which have incorporated the actual Agenda 2000 reforms and adjusted expectations on the number of countries and timing of enlargement, and are considered to be more accurate in their predictions. More specifically, the studies are produced by DIW (Berlin/Göttingen), IBO/LEI (The Hague) and IAMO (Halle)

The Political Economy of Agricultural Transition

International Development,

How Distorted Have Agricultural Incentives Become in EuropeÂ’s Transition Economies?

Over the past two decades, earnings from farming in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia have been altered hugely by government sectoral and trade policy reforms. This paper summarizes evidence on the changing extent of distortions to markets for farm products since the transition away from planned prices began. In particular, it examines the extent to which, following the initial shocks, there has been a gradual improvement in farmer incentives. This new evidence is not inconsistent with that past pattern of earlier-developing countries, but the speed of assistance increase is relatively rapid and is linked with actual or desired accession to the European Union. The final section focuses on future prospects, and in particular on what might be done to avoid agricultural protection levels becoming excessive.Distorted farmer and consumer incentives, agricultural price and trade policy reforms, agricultural development, European transition economies

From Public to Private Governance in the Food Supply Chains of Emerging Economies

Food and agricultural commodity value chains in developing and transition countries have undergone tremendous changes in the past decades. Companies and property rights have been privatized, markets liberalized, and economies integrated into global food systems. The liberalization and privatization initially caused the collapse of state-controlled vertical integration. More recently, private vertical coordination systems have emerged and are growing rapidly as a response to consumer demand for food quality and safety on the one hand and the farms' production constraints caused by factor market imperfections. In this paper we (a) demonstrate the importance of these changes, (b) discuss the implications for efficiency and equity and (c) provide empirical evidence on the effects in several developing and transition countries.Agricultural and Food Policy, Industrial Organization,

Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Central and Eastern Europe

Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,