The EU has argued that some agricultural subsidies are needed to provide the optimal amount of externalities (both positive and negative) produced by agriculture. The argument is that agriculture is "multifunctional" and externalities such as rural development and landscape would be...

European Union (EU) agri-environmental programmes (AEPs) represent a significant step in the region's efforts to decouple agricultural output from production and export subsidies. While AEPs comprise only a small share of EU agricultural support, they have two possible external impacts: 1) the...

Until there is a successful challenge at the WTO, the EU policy on LLP is likely to remain in place. Under this policy, there is a zero tolerance level for GM material that has not received EU authorization. Zero tolerance, however, has to be operationalized – what does an exporting country...

Public policy makers in Canada should expect the US to object to the extension of protection to EU GIs in the CETA. The expected gains made in other areas of the CETA for agreeing to protect EU GIs need to be weighed carefully against the potential cost of trade actions through NAFTA. The NAFTA...

In 2011, the Canadian Agrifood Policy Institute released an report highlighting the importance of the agrifood sector to the economy and concluded by stating the need for Canada to double the dollar value of agrifood exports to ensure the viability of the system. This paper seeks to estimate...

The Canadian Farm Products Agencies Act (2012) requires that comparative advantage be used to guide the allocation of new quota under supply management. This requirement, however, has not been met in practice. Agricultural economists have proposed several ways of making this legal requirement...

There exists an extensive literature that attempts to identify important factors that determine trade policies. An understanding of these important factors could be useful when negotiating trade agreements, especially in agriculture, which is a relatively heavily supported industry. Limao and...

Negotiators from developed countries pushed hard for the inclusion of the TRIPS Agreement in the WTO set of agreements because it was viewed as a potentially effective method of coercing developing countries to strengthen their protection of intellectual property rights (IPR). We investigate...

Current trade policy pursued by the Sri Lankan government on rice can best be described as adhoc as it is characterized by protecting farmers during glut seasons and consumers during deficit seasons. This study examines the economy-wide impacts of various policy packages on rice and related...