Cross compliance and competitiveness of the European beef and pig sector

Beef and pig production are important sectors affected by the cross-compliance policy. Full compliance with SMRs and GAECs generates costs and benefits which may have an impact on the competitiveness of these sectors on the world market. Compliance with the Nitrate Directive, animal identification and registration requirements and animal welfare standards can give rise to non-negligible cost of production increases at individual farm level and at sector level. Additional costs can be relevant either due to a low degree of compliance or by significant adjustments costs at farm level. Full compliance generates a level playing field between Member States of the EU, as some countries have to face higher additional costs than others, which are be attributed to differences in degree of compliance. This paper first presents evidence of additional costs at individual farm level due to full compliance. Then for beef and pork a methodology has been developed in order to calculate sector cost impacts following an upcsaling procedure for each of the analysed directives. Simulations with the GTAP model have enabled an assessment of the trade effect of compliance with standards and the impact on the external competitiveness of the EU beef and pork production. In some policy fields covered by cross-compliance important trade partners such as Canada, USA and New Zealand have implemented policies similar to the EU. In these three countries comparable standards to those in the EU were identified and the level and cost of compliance have been assessed. The pig sector will be affected most by a unilateral compliance with standards in the EU, in particular as the Nitrate Directive is concerned. Within the EU pig production costs will rise by 0.545 %. Imports may increase by 4% and exports may fall by 3%. However full application of the Clean Water Act in the US, which contains similar obligations to the Nitrate Directive, generates a significant sector cost increase (1,08%) which may counterbalance the loss of competitiveness of EU pork production towards the US. Compliance with the mandatory animal welfare standards has only minor cost implications and has negligible effects on external competitiveness of the EU both because of a high degree of compliance and relatively low adjustment costs at farm level. Finally, in many EU member states the degree of compliance of beef farms with the animal registration and identification directives is below 100%. Additional costs for full compliance within the EU have been estimated at 0.455%, which may cause an increase of beef imports of 2.21% and a decline of exports of ¿2.12%. This loss in competitiveness of the EU will further favour the position of Brazil on the world beef market. At the other hand significant benefits are obtained in food security of EU beef

Costs of compliance with EU regulations and competitiveness of the EU dairy sector

The introduction of cross-compliance mechanism in the European Union with its 2003 CAPreform might affect the costs of production and thus competitiveness of the EU. Little evidence is available to asses the costs of compliance with regulations and it implication for trade. In this study a farm level competitiveness analysis of the impacts of the Nitrate Directive and the Identification & registration Directive focuses on the dairy sector in Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and UK (within EU), and the US and New Zealand (outside EU). The findings from this study are integrated into a trade analysis which assesses the impact of compliance costs on competitiveness of the various trading nations in global trade. Representative farm studies were used as a basis for the cost increase calculations. Best-estimates of compliance are used from the existing literature and expert judgements. The negative impact of these measures (for nitrates, and animal identification and registration) on EU imports and exports are less than 3 percent. If a smaller increase in compliance takes place, these already relatively small trade impacts will be further diminished. When the standards for nitrate pollution taken by the US and New Zealand are taken into account along with full compliance assumption in all countries analysed, this would only slightly improve the EU exports. The trade impacts obtained when no changes are assumed to happen in key competitor countries can thus be argued as providing the upper bound of the likely trade impacts

LTE1 promotes exit from mitosis by multiple mechanisms

In budding yeast, alignment of the anaphase spindle along the mother–bud axis is crucial for maintaining genome integrity. If the anaphase spindle becomes misaligned in the mother cell compartment, cells arrest in anaphase because the mitotic exit network (MEN), an essential Ras-like GTPase signaling cascade, is inhibited by the spindle position checkpoint (SPoC). Distinct localization patterns of MEN and SPoC components mediate MEN inhibition. Most components of the MEN localize to spindle pole bodies. If the spindle becomes mispositioned in the mother cell compartment, cells arrest in anaphase due to inhibition of the MEN by the mother cell–restricted SPoC kinase Kin4. Here we show that a bud-localized activating signal is necessary for full MEN activation. We identify Lte1 as this signal and show that Lte1 activates the MEN in at least two ways. It inhibits small amounts of Kin4 that are present in the bud via its central domain. An additional MEN-activating function of Lte1 is mediated by its N- and C-terminal GEF domains, which, we propose, directly activate the MEN GTPase Tem1. We conclude that control of the MEN by spindle position is exerted by both negative and positive regulatory elements that control the pathway’s GTPase activity.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HD085866)National Cancer Institute (U.S.)David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Support (Core) (Grant P30-CA14051

Well-managed grazing systems: A forgotten hero of conservation

Ecologically sound grazing management is an underused and underappreciated conservation tool in the eastern United States. We contend that significant policy and educational barriers stand in the way of expanding the use of this conservation tool. Well-managed pasture systems combine vigorous perennial vegetation cover, reduced pesticide and fertilizer inputs, and lower costs of production using ecological approaches to generate ecosystem services for society, as well as economic sustainability for the producer. The majority of currently available conservation policy tools were designed to address either rangeland grazing situations in the western United States or conservation cropping in the eastern United States. To promote well-managed pastures in the eastern United States, resource managers and government agencies struggle to adapt programs that are really designed for annual row crop systems. Additional educational and technical assistance resources are needed for promoting well-managed pasture-based farming in the region. This paper summarizes the potential of well-managed pasture systems to provide ecosystem services, provides thoughts for discussion on the barriers to adoption of such systems in the eastern United States, and offers some solutions to move such systems forward through policy and educational efforts. These ideas were first presented at a symposium as part of the 2011 Annual Conference of the Soil and Water Conservation Society in Washington, DC

Compliance with mandatory standards in agriculture : a comparative approach of the EU vis-à-vis the United States, Canada and New Zealand

This report presents some of the interim results of the project 'Facilitating the CAP reform: Compliance and competitiveness of European agriculture'. It summarises and integrates the implementation of cross compliance measures in seven EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain and Poland), with a particular focus on the degree of compliance and the costs of compliance. Also, the implementation of similar measures is examined in three non-EU countries (Canada, United States and New Zealand)