I really enjoy it when one resource becomes even more relevant due to another item popping up.
The topic for this post is agriculture, choices and poverty. My first recommendation is this research article on the Voxeu web site. It's a basic study of the effect on agricultural trade barriers on global poverty. The imposition of trade barriers is a choice, frequently a political one, which has far-reaching economic effects. There are often domestic benefits for the country imposing the barriers. And there are often foreign costs that are not considered.
The authors of the study feel that the costs to global poor are significant. Their conclusion states that removal of agricultural trade barriers could lower global poverty by 3%. While that may not sound like much, in absolute terms it is more impressive.
According to their research, removal of agricultural trade barriers will increase demand for the produce of the global poor who live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The study recognizes that increased demand also can raise the price of staple foods these same poor need to survive. But it also posits that removal of global barriers, while providing higher prices for food for export can have beneficial effects on food prices within the various countries, and on wages. Overall, the Voxeu piece is a worthwhile read.
The second resource also deals with agriculture, poverty and choice. It deals with the "buy local" choice. This article in Foreign Policy magazine (HT to Division of Labour) shows how decisions to "buy local" can have an impact on global agriculture markets, again affecting the poor in other countries. It has some amazing photographs, as well.
This third article, from today' edition of The Wall Street Journal gets into the definition of a farmer's market. In my opinion, it also talks about how market drive competition and how competition reduces costs. If you’ll pardon the pun, it’s just some "food" for thought. Please share yours (not your food, your thought).
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1 comment:
It appears that there are both pluses and minuses to getting rid of trade barriers. However, based on the research I would be for getting rid of these trade barriers because our nation has a problem with poverty. The research said that getting rid of these trade barriers would lower global poverty by 3% which is quite a significant amount if you think about it.
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