India's policy responses to the food price crisis were strong. Exports of basic staples were banned. Domestic support prices of wheat and rice were raised substantially. The urea price increases in global markets were absorbed through enhanced fertilizer subsidies. The government launched the...

Private actors have been actively working on standards that certify products and their production processes to minimize negative externalities. The number of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) has been increasing over the last few decades, raising interest in understanding their impact on...

This article shows how China’s rise has radically altered the politics of one of the most prominent and controversial issues in the global trading system: agriculture subsidies. Agriculture subsidies depress global prices and undermine the competitiveness and livelihoods of poor farmers, and...

The agricultural and food sector is an ideal case for investigating the political economy of public policies. Many of the policy developments in this sector since the 1950s have been sudden and transformational, while others have been gradual but persistent. This article reviews and synthesizes...

This report synthesises OECD work analysing agricultural policies, markets and trade. It highlights recent developments in agricultural markets and policies and considers how these have changed the source and nature of the gains from multilateral reform, and considers opportunities for further...

Among distortions in international agricultural trade, those imposed by the European Union (EU) are the most disruptive. Under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU has switched from being a large net importer of agricultural products to a large exporter. This has greatly altered world...

The Doha Round, launched in 2001, is the longest going (still unfinished) Round of negotiations in the history of the World Trade Organization and its predecessor GATT. The main roadblock to Doha’s successful completion is disagreement on agricultural issues – the Special Safeguard...

The purpose of this paper is to update the information on net food importing countries, using different definitions of food, separating countries by their level of income, whether they are in conflict and whether they are significant oil exporters. The study also estimates the changes in net...

We analyze the relationship between food security and trade focusing on food importers' exposure to sudden market failures from relying on a narrow range of international suppliers. We compute a bilateral import penetration index (BIPI), which gauges the degree to which a country depends on...