The paper's background is a revival of the historically dominant narrative on the large-scale and plantation farming (LSF and PF) in Africa, in reaction to the contemporary phenomenon of 'land grabbing'. The historical antecedents of this narrative are examined and its central contentions - that...

Commodity derivatives have been traded for well over a century, often stimulating calls for stricter regulation during periods of major commodity price inflation or deflation. The 2000s, when a sharp rise in commodity prices coincided with a spectacular rise in participation in derivatives...

The largest Commodity Trading Houses account for a large and increasing share of international trade, linked arguably to their financialization and - according to some commentators - giving rise to issues of 'systemic importance' similar to those applying to large investment banks. This paper...

This paper reports the results of a survey of almost all certified and in-conversion organic export operations in Uganda in late 2005. It covers products exported, company size and ownership, standards exported to, certification costs, total export values, value-added in Uganda, marketing...

The paper examines the relative profitability of certified organic and conventional farming operations in tropical Africa as well as differences between organic and conventional farmers in rates of adoption of farming practices and in household factor endowments. The paper is based on three...

Against the background of growing concern about climate change, some European private organic standard-setting bodies led by the Soil Association are considering whether to refuse certification of organic produce imported by air. Their right to determine the rules to which they certify produce,...

This paper examines trends in agro-commodity trade over the decade to 2005, in relation to the changing patterns of import demand and price trends, globally and in Developing Asia. It also examines the performance of 'commodity-dependent developing countries' (CDDCs) in agrocommodity trade. It...

Economic opinion is in the process of re-interpreting low levels of uptake of non-reciprocal pre-ferential trade agreements (PTAs) partly in terms of administrative barriers to preference utiliza-tion. Primary amongst these barriers are Rules of Origin. This paper reviews the literature on Rules...

This paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming and of use of organic farming methods in a tropical African context. These are compared with 'organic by default' conventional farming systems without contractual relations. Survey data from a medium-size cocoa-vanilla...