The debate over a new farm bill has focused on how to spend an additional $73.5 billion in funding for the agricultural budget over 10 years. The House of Representatives, the Senate agriculture committee, and Senators Cochran and Roberts (supported by the Bush administration) have each proposed...

The United States Congress is currently devising the next farm bill. One of the many factors influencing the debate is the effect of trade agreements into which the United States has entered. Under the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture, government spending on trade-distorting...

This analysis uses the 2011 FAPRI-CARD (Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute–Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) baseline to evaluate the impact of four alternative scenarios on U.S. and world agricultural markets, as well as on world fertilizer use and world...

Demand for non-GMO (genetically modified organism) corn and soybeans is high in the EU and Japan, which are two of the largest markets for U.S. corn and soybeans. This presents a potential problem for markets if U.S. processors find themselves scrambling to locate and purchase non-GMO crops. By...

This paper briefly summarizes the impacts of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms on the European agricultural sector and on international agricultural trade. Objectives of the CAP reform (as stated in EU Commission documents) are to ensure the environmental viability of...

Using the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) modeling system, we investigate the multilateral removal of border taxes and farm programs and their distortion of world agricultural markets. We find that agricultural and trade distortions have significant terms-of-trade...

The WTO commitments made by the United States are often cited as being an important constraint on the design of future U.S. farm programs. Many, however, are confused about the U.S. commitments and their future importance. In this paper, the authors attempt to fill this gap in understanding by...

The U.S. ethanol industry is lobbying hard for an extension of existing ethanol import tariffs and blenders tax credits before they expire at the end of 2010. The purpose of this study is to examine the likely consequences on the U.S. ethanol industry, corn producers, taxpayers, fuel blenders,...

This report provides insight into four aspects of modeling indirect land use caused by expanded biofuels production. The report was motivated by the National Biodiesel Board's interest in better understanding how the California Air Resources Board (CARB) estimated an indirect land-use factor for...

The elasticity of aggregate supply is one key to understanding the degree to which policy-induced increases in demand for biofuel feedstocks or agricultural CO2 offsets will result in higher prices or expanded supply. In this paper we report land supply elasticities for the United States and...