Green Trade Agreements: Comparison of Canada, US and WTO

Paper presented at the CAES/NAREA meeting, Quebec City, June 29 - July 1, 2008.trade, free trade agreements, environment, World Trade Organization, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

AGRICULTURE IN THE APPALACHIAN REGION: 1965-2000

Revised version of a paper presented at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, January 28-31, 2001Community/Rural/Urban Development,

FARMLAND PRESERVATION PROGRAMS

Paper presented at the Seventh International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, University of Missouri, Columbia, May 25-27, 1998. The preservation of farmland is an important issue in most areas of the U.S. and all states have enacted legislation to promote this activity. This article reviews the various policy tools for preserving farmland. Use valuation of farmland for property tax purposes is the most common remedy but it is not effective where there are strong incentives to convert land to nonfarm uses because of high land values. The purchase of development rights has become an important method in areas facing severe pressures.Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Land, Land Use and Competitiveness

Land costs account for a significant proportion of the total costs for many agricultural products that are traded internationally, especially for the major grain crops that the U.S. exports in competition with several other countries. For owner-operators, a common form of tenure in the U.S. and most other countries, most land costs are implicit and involve few cash outlays, i.e., are opportunity costs that are important in the long-run but that may not affect production decisions in the short-run. To the extent that land is rented or where the owner is making mortgage payments, however, larger explicit land costs are incurred and can be a very significant factor in the cost of production and competitiveness. U.S. cost of production data for most crops in recent years indicate that the returns on equity, including land and other owned resources are zero or negative, i.e., the prices of many farm products are too low to cover total costs when opportunity costs are included as part of the cost of production. Thus, land costs may not be a significant factor in competitiveness in the current policy framework where government payments are a significant part of the net returns of farm operators.Land Economics/Use,

Environmental Provisions in Recent Regional Trade Agreements (2008 & 2009)

Despite a failure to achieve closure on the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, regional and bilateral trade agreements involving a variety of countries have continued to be negotiated, signed and implemented. Most of the recent trade agreements have contained some environmental provisions, ranging from a pledge to protect the environment to very extensive environmental requirements. These results appear to reflect a recognition that trade has environmental consequences and that trade agreements can be constructed to help mitigate such effects.environment, environmental provisions, free trade, trade agreements, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy,

Environmental Provisions in Trade Agreements

Trade and environmental issues are interrelated, have become part of the negotiating process for free trade agreements, and are included in a substantial number of such agreements since being included in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NATA) and the Marakesh Agreement from Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. Although the NAFTA agreement contained extensive environmental provisions and institutional mechanisms for their implementation in its environmental side agreement, most of those signed since that time are more modest. Typically they contain provisions for environmental cooperation, pledges to enforce environmental laws and to not to weaken their enforce so as to become environmental havens, and when developing countries are included pledges for technical and/or other assistance. While environmental issues are included in the ongoing Doha Round of the WTO negotiations, most international environmental efforts continue to be handled through a relatively large number of Multilateral Environmental AgreementsEnvironmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

WEST VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE IN 1997: SITUATION, TRENDS AND COMPARISON

Agriculture in West Virginia produces significant amounts of income, provides full and part-time employment for substantial numbers of people, helps to make rural areas pleasant places to live, and creates amenities for residents visitors to the state. Agriculture in the State follows the trends in U.S. Agriculture. However, farms in the state are smaller and a larger proportion of its farm income is derived from livestock and livestock products with the poultry industry now surpassing beef cattle as the largest source of farm income.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN THE FTAA

Paper presented at the 24th West Indies Agricultural Economics Conference, Granada, July 19-12, 2002. Environmental issues have become important in trade agreement negotiations. NAFTA explicitly includes environmental provisions and they are affecting ongoing WTO and FTAA negotiations. The final role of the environment in the FTAA is uncertain, given opposition by most of the members. The draft FTAA agreement does not contain a separate section on the environment, but a U.S. position paper indicates that environmental provisions are important and that U.S. negotiators will seek to incorporate environmental concerns into specific chapters such those on investment and agriculture. The large number and varied economic and environmental conditions of the 34 countries in the FTAA, make it difficult to include meaningful environmental provisions in the agreement, but environmentalists are seeking them and the inclusion of such provisions in the NAFTA and WTO agreements will tend to make it difficult to get approval of future agreements that do not address environmental issues or at least that do not guard against creating pollution havens or that encourage laxness in environmental protection. This paper examines environmental and trade issues in the context of the FTAA negotiations including analyses of environmental conditions in the region and the pros and cons of their inclusion in the FTAA and other trade agreements.International trade, trade agreements, agricultural trade, environment, trade and environment, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, F1, F13, F15, F18,

IMPACTS OF NAFTA ON U.S.-MEXICO AGRICULTURAL TRADE

Paper presented at the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association's Annual Meeting, Bar Harbor, ME, June 10-12, 2001 Data for 1989-99 indicate that U.S.-Mexico trade has increased substantially under NAFTA. Regression analyses do not provide strong evidence that NAFTA has been an mportant factor since the data indicate a continuation of previous trends. NAFTA resulted in trade under TRQs for previously prohibited products and enabled other trade to continue increasing.International Relations/Trade,

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS AND COMPETITIVENESS

Costs of environmental regulations, although relatively small, can be critical in the competitiveness of a product since the cost advantages of producers in one country are often very slim. Additional costs derived from new regulations are a factor in the continued importance of exports and of the maintaining or increasing a nations share of the international market. Governments try to assist their industries in overcoming the disadvantages caused by such added cost through subsidies, tax breaks, technical assistance or in other ways. In agriculture these are increasingly taking the form of green payments, which are currently exempt from the limits imposed on domestic subsidies. In addition to these mechanisms for addressing the environment, there also has been a selective but subversive process of erecting non-tariff barriers based on environmental protection issues. It is often difficult to determine if such measures are really for protecting the environment or for protecting domestic producers. They are, none-the-less, generally effective approaches for achieving environmental objectives and can also be effective measures to alter competitiveness. Competitiveness can be either enhanced or diminished by the environmental regimes of competing nations. The existence of negative externalities means that prices are lower than would prevail if all costs where included in the prices of the products.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,