In March 1999 the Danish Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries invited key policy makers from the food industry, farmers' organisations, consumer organisations and labour unions in Denmark to discuss the future perspectives for the Danish agricultural and fisheries sectors in a national and global context. In order to qualify and quantify the debate, the Danish Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Economics (SJFI) was called upon to participate in the discussions and to assess the future development of the Danish agricultural sectors with the aim of identifying challenges and opportunities. SJFI was also asked to analyse the economic consequences of specific policy scenarios, including the impact of higher national standards in relation to environmental protection, animal welfare and food security. This paper describes how the SJFI team has put GTAP to work in a specific policy context demonstrating the applicability of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models for practical policy advise purposes. It is concluded that such model-based analysis - in spite of its limitations - has influenced the political debate in Denmark and that the strength of the CGE approach lies not so much in the exact numerical results, but rather in the focus on important economic mechanisms and linkages, thereby providing a structured analytical framework. Moreover, the Danish experience illustrates that using more formal analytical approaches such as CGE modelling contributes to a more focused, disciplined and hence a more constructive policy debat
