This report examines the different channels through which trade openness (and reforms to achieve it) can affect a country’s food security. The overall conclusion is that trade openness has a positive net impact on food security, although specific constituencies, including some poor households,...

This report considers developments in agricultural patents since 1990 and their economic implications. It first provides an overview of the international framework for intellectual property protection and of the general trends in the stringency of protection in OECD countries. It then presents...

Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are key instruments to governing international trade, and reflect a balance between political and economic objectives. The level of liberalisation in the agriculture sector can differ substantially across negotiated agreements, and even across products within the...

This report analyses policies along the agricultural supply chain, in particular support measures for fertilisers and for biofuels. It uses the OECD Fertiliser and Biofuel Support Policies Database that covers polices in 48 countries (including the EU and its Members) and assesses the market...

Societal concerns as they pertain to farming activities play an important role today in the development of national policies. How such concerns are perceived varies from one society to another as do the policy responses (economic instruments and regulations) that governments put in place. These...

Achieving the Millennium Development Goal to halve global poverty by 2015 looks increasingly likely, although many countries may fall far short of this goal. This study compares socio-economic characteristics of twenty-five countries that have posted exceptional progress in reducing poverty to...

This paper is one of five case studies which is a part of a larger project looking at the various effects that trade and investment can have on innovation. This paper studies the effect of domestic reform including trade on New Zealand's agriculture sector. Agricultural and trade reform has led...

This paper is one of five case studies which is a part of a larger project looking at the various effects that trade and investment can have on innovation. This paper studies the effect of deregulation and trade reform on South Africa's agriculture sector. South Africa's agriculture sector is...

The WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005 made some progress in advancing the Doha Development Agenda. But much remains to be done, particularly in settling negotiating modalities in agriculture and NAMA and in putting some flesh onto the bones of the GATS. And where progress was...

This paper discusses the adjustment pressures faced by smallholders in middle-income countries, considers the types of policy response that are warranted, and proposes an integrated framework for more inclusive development. Central to this framework is the recognition that the long-term (i.e....