Last week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack kicked off the 2015-16 International Food Security at Illinois seminar series with a talk on discuss how land-grant universities could help improve world food security. We face the global challenge to feed a world of 10.5 to 11 billion people by 2050. As incomes rise, people demand […]
Archive | International
Palm Oil in West Africa: The New Frontier?
Recent changes in both the supply and demand for palm oil are rapidly changing the face of its world market. The underlying cause of this change is tension between conflicting desires: economic growth and environmental protection, which drive the choices of palm oil producers, consumers, and policy makers. The future of the palm oil industry, […]
“You Quit??” – Small Farmer Contracting and the Importance of Dropout
Over the past 20 years, international trade liberalization and various reforms have dismantled many government controls on agricultural markets in the developing world, opening new commercial spheres for farm products and new marketing choices for farmers in the Global South[1]. One class of these opportunities is linked to the modernization and expansion of agricultural value […]
Why formal credit eludes African smallholder farmers and the role of village moneylenders
Eyeballing the bowl of ugali lying on the rough-edged wooden table for eight, the African farmer feels once again let down by those more powerful than herself: weather, God and government. Rewinding this year’s events, the rain was unmoved by the collective prayers and tantalized villagers with an elusive appearance. With pest killers selling at […]
Income inequality and educational inequality: Comparing the U.S. and Brazil
In 2014, stories about rising inequality in the United States made headlines. In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama focused on inequality, saying “Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled.” A book by a French economist about inequality, Capital by Thomas Piketty, became an unexpected best seller. One of the most important […]
Giving Aid to Conflict-Affected Regions Can Backfire
Civil conflict has devastating effects on the livelihoods of millions of people and is a major obstacle to economic growth and poverty reduction. According to the World Bank (2011), “poverty reduction in countries affected by major violence is on average nearly a percentage point slower per year than in countries not affected by violence.” No […]
Little Evidence that the National Food Authority can Influence the Price of Rice in the Philippines
Rice is the staple food in the Philippines. It accounts for 1/3 of the total food consumption (in terms of domestic utilization in metric tons) and is grown on about 4 million hectares of the total 13 million hectares of arable land (Glipo, Vibal and Cainglet, 2002). The Philippine government has made numerous attempts to […]
Crushing on Cash
Cash is the new international development darling — lauded by researchers and practitioners as the new standard for foreign aid. Delivering cash to individuals rather than aid in-kind (such as cows, building materials, training), has gained increasing prominence in the past 15 years. It shows promise as a means to increase the efficiency and effectiveness […]
Part 3: TTIP Negotiations on Foreign Investment Rules
In this third post, we consider the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) rules about foreign direct investment (FDI). In 2013 the governments of all European Union member states presented guidelines to the European Commission to include provisions for investment protection in the TTIP negotiations. These rules have been heatedly debated in the EU’s […]
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Part 2 : TTIP, Regulatory Harmonization, and Non-tariff Barriers to Trade
The stated aims of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the United States and the European Union are to increase jobs, profits, and worker incomes on both sides of the Atlantic. At this still early date, four key studies have quantitatively assessed the projected economic benefits of such an accord (Ecorys, […]