Economywide Impact of Maize Export Bans on Agricultural Growth and Household Welfare in Tanzania: A Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Model Analysis

Export bans have been frequently used by developing countries in recent years in an attempt to ensure domestic food supplies and insulate domestic market prices from international price hikes. This article uses Tanzania to examine the impact of export bans using a computable general equilibrium model. We find that banning cross‐border maize exports has very little effect on the national food price index and that the benefits from lower maize prices are captured primarily by urban households, while maize producer prices decrease significantly. The export ban further decreases the wage rate for low‐skilled labour and the returns to land, while returns to non‐agricultural capital and wage rates for skilled labour increase, further hurting poor rural households and thus increasing poverty for the country as a whole.     

Modern Food Supply Chains and Development: Evidence from Horticulture Export Sectors in Sub‐Saharan Africa

The global food system is undergoing rapid processes of transformation and modernisation. This is causing important changes in developing‐country food supply chains, particularly in supermarket‐driven and high‐value export chains, but the welfare implications of these changes are poorly understood. This article analyses and compares the welfare effects in different horticulture export chains in sub‐Saharan Africa, disentangling different types of effects and the channels through which rural households are affected. Its main conclusion is that increased high‐value exports and the modernisation of export supply chains can bring about important positive welfare effects, which can occur in various ways through product‐ or labour‐market effects and through direct and indirect effects.     

Agricultural Exports,Food Production,and Food Security in Latin America1

Abstract This study assesses the impact of agricultural, export-oriented policies on food consumption through a time-series, cross-sectional regression model. The results of this study lead to three basic conclusions. First, there is a significant negative relationship between agricultural export promotion and food consumption. Economic growth and increasing agricultural exports earnings do not necessarily increase food security. Second, protein consumption per capita constitutes a more sensitive indicator of changes in food consumption and a proxy for the distributional dimension of the food consumption problem. Third, alternative policies should incorporate agricultural export into a broader agroindustrial development strategy aimed at achieving food security both by increasing income and by food production.     

Bringing the “Moral Charge” Home: Fair Trade within the North and within the South*

Abstract Fair trade is typically understood as an alternative market system that aims to right historically inequitable terms of trade between the geopolitical North and South and foster more direct producer/consumer linkages. We suggest that a more expansive application of the term “fair trade” to encompass agro‐food initiatives within the North and South has considerable analytic and practical utility. We profile five such initiatives in the United States and two in Mexico. The U.S. undertakings are best understood as “proto‐” fair trade projects that frame their work principally as an effort to preserve “family farming” rather than as an exercise to achieve fairness in the marketplace. The Mexican initiatives more explicitly embrace the certification‐criteria‐labeling model of international fair trade. Both, we conclude, hold potential to harness fair trade's “moral charge” to improve conditions for small producers and laborers in North and South experiencing most directly the negative effects of economic globalization.     

The Political Economy of “Food Security” and Trade: Uneven and Combined Dependency

This article critiques the notion of food security through trade promoted by suprastate organizations like the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. We use and refine the food‐regime perspective to contest this unwritten rule of the neoliberal food regime. Rather than “mutual dependency” in food between “North” and “South,” as argued by Philip McMichael, however, we show that food dependency has been stronger on basic foods in developing countries, while advanced capitalist countries' dependency has been mostly on luxury foods. Also, the more that developing countries become dependent on food imports and exports, the more they will be importing the “world food price” for the relevant commodities. Food‐price inflation will more adversely affect their working classes, which spend larger shares of their household budgets on food. Our empirical focus is on food dependency in emerging nations—Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Turkey—in comparison with long‐standing agricultural exporting powerhouses, the United States and Canada. Using longitudinal data from FAOSTAT, we show that food security in the neoliberal food regime can best be characterized as “uneven and combined dependency.”     

Demand Constraints on Agricultural Growth in East and Southern Africa: A General Equilibrium Analysis

This article analyses demand constraints on agricultural growth in seven countries of East and Southern Africa using an applied general equilibrium framework. It finds that both traditional and non‐traditional export crops have limited potential to raise incomes because of demand constraints (for traditional exports) or a relatively small base (for non‐traditional exports). The best prospects for agriculture‐led growth remain in the food sector, where domestic demand represents a large and growing market. Improvements in market efficiency and simultaneous growth in the livestock sectors can help spur demand further and avert falls in prices. Achieving rapid gains in farm incomes, however, also requires investment in rural infrastructure to reduce marketing costs, and demand‐ enhancing growth in the non‐agricultural sector to spur demand.     

Nitrogen Fertilizer Dependency and Its Contradictions: A Theoretical Exploration of Social‐Ecological Metabolism*

Abstract The global agro‐food system relies heavily on inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers. In addition to consuming enormous amounts of energy, this manufactured input contributes to the accumulation of reactive nitrogen in the biosphere and undermines the biological basis of agricultural production itself. While technological inefficiency and population may play a role in the phenomenon of global nitrogen accumulation, the social structural features of industrial agriculture must also be examined. The concept of social‐ecological metabolism provides an important and needed conceptual framework for engaging global food security issues.     

Immigration and the New Racial Diversity in Rural America*

This article highlights the new racial and ethnic diversity in rural America, which may be the most important but least anticipated population shift in recent demographic history. Ethnoracial change is central to virtually every aspect of rural America over the foreseeable future: agro‐food systems, community life, labor force change, economic development, schools and schooling, demographic change, intergroup relations, and politics. The goal here is to plainly illustrate how America's racial and ethnic transformation has emerged as an important dimension of ongoing U.S. urbanization and urbanism, growing cultural and economic heterogeneity, and a putative “decline in community” in rural America. Rural communities provide a natural laboratory for better understanding the implications of uneven settlement and racial diversity, acculturation, and economic and political incorporation among Hispanic newcomers. This article raises the prospect of a new racial balkanization and outlines key impediments to full incorporation of Hispanics into rural and small town community life. Immigration and the new ethnoracial diversity will be at the leading edge of major changes in rural community life as the nation moves toward becoming a majority‐minority society by 2042.     

The Impact of Trade and Exchange‐rate Policy Reforms on North African Manufactured Exports

Three indicators capture the impact of exchange‐rate policy in fostering manufactured exports from North Africa: changes in the real effective exchange rate (REER), its volatility, and its misalignment. The impact of trade policy is examined using a trade liberalisation indicator. Export supply equations are estimated for three manufacturing industries: textiles, chemicals, and food. The results suggest that trade and exchange‐rate policies matter for export performance, as is evidenced by the negative influence exerted independently by real exchange‐rate misalignment and volatility and by the positive influence of trade liberalisation.     

Fertiliser Subsidies and Social Cash Transfers as Complementary or Competing Instruments for Reducing Vulnerability to Hunger: The Case of Malawi

Fertiliser subsidies and social transfers are complementary instruments for reducing vulnerability to hunger in poor agrarian countries. The former act on production and aim to reduce food insecurity through yield growth, while the latter tackle food‐entitlement failures directly, by providing either food itself or the cash to purchase food to selected beneficiaries. The policies compete for scarce public resources, and each represents an ‘opportunity cost’ compared to the other. Using Malawi to illustrate these comparisons, this article shows that a mix of policies can be affordable, allowing for strategic choice over the portfolio most likely to achieve a reliable consumption floor for the most vulnerable rural people.     

Agricultural Exports and Food Insecurity in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Qualititative Configurational Analysis

Export of agricultural products is increasingly seen as one of the few viable instruments to solve the problem of food insecurity in developing countries. Using the configurative comparative method to study 17 countries in sub‐Saharan Africa, this article argues that increasing agricultural export is only beneficial for certain types of developing countries. Before agricultural exports are encouraged, food availability, agricultural labour productivity, the share of agriculture in total GDP, the amount of staple food imports, and the share of investment goods in total imports should be considered.     

Supply of schooling and dropout rates: Evidence from the Oportunidades programme in Mexico

In this article we provide evidence that measures of school supply, such as quantity and quality at the local level, are important predictors of dropout behaviour among conditional cash transfer beneficiaries in Mexico. We use administrative records of the Oportunidades programme in both rural and urban areas to follow the schooling trajectory of a cohort of students from sixth grade to high school. Under half of rural beneficiaries attending sixth grade make it to the tenth grade. Our regression analysis indicates that the absence of a junior high school in a locality increases the probability of dropping out after sixth grade by 6.8 percentage points; the absence of a high school increases the probability of dropping out after ninth grade by 12.2 percentage points. This means that 16% of all rural sixth‐grade students would enter tenth grade if they had junior high and high schools in their localities. Attending a low‐quality junior high school increases the probability of dropping out after ninth grade by 13 percentage points in rural areas and 7.6 percentage points in urban areas.     

Transnationalism and American Exports in an English‐Speaking World1

Investigating the relationship between immigration, middleman minority status, transnationalism, and U.S. foreign trade, the authors assembled a census‐based data file that contains aggregate‐level variables for 88 foreign‐born groups by national origin between 1980 and 1990. They regressed immigrant characteristics and immigration volume upon time‐lagged import/export statistics from the same 88 nations between 1985 and 1995. Results show the independent influence on exports of immigrant entrepreneurship, transnationalism, and middleman minority status. But these variables, exhaustively derived from the existing literature, had no effect on U.S. imports; they only affected exports. The authors propose that the discrepancy between imports and exports arises because of the dominance of English as a world business language. In this situation, foreigners need no help from immigrants when they export to the United States; but native‐born, monolingual Americans need the help of bicultural immigrants when they export. The empirical results suggest that immigrant entrepreneurs enhance the United States' exports and thus reduce the United States' balance of payments deficit.     

SOYBEAN EXPORTS AND DEFORESTATION FROM A WORLD‐SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE: A Cross‐National Investigation of Comparative Disadvantage

This article draws on world‐system theorizing to explore the relationship between deforestation and the vertical flow of soybean exports from less‐developed nations to more‐developed nations as a specific form of ecologically unequal exchange. Despite overwhelming case‐study research exploring soybean–deforestation dynamics in less‐developed countries, the current literature lacks any cross‐national investigation of this trend. Ordinary least squares regression is used to examine whether soybean exports are associated with deforestation and if the magnitude of this relationship varies by region. Overall, the findings confirm the proposed hypotheses and suggest that having a comparative advantage in soybean production is not a viable development strategy.     

Exploring the Feasibility of Farmers' Rights

In many developing countries, there is concern that a conventional system of plant breeders' rights provides no rewards to farmers for their role in the conservation and enhancement of agro‐biodiversity. To redress this imbalance, developing countries are incorporating farmers' rights provisions in their plant variety protection legislation. This article examines the feasibility of farmers' rights provisions based on intellectual property rights. It argues that the farmers' rights provisions crafted by some developing countries will involve enormous operational difficulties, while IPR‐based farmers' rights are unlikely to provide significant economic returns to farmers or farming communities. At the same time, farmers' rights provisions, as currently conceived, are likely significantly to dilute the incentives for innovation provided to institutional plant breeders.     

Subsidized Housing and Household Hardship Among Low‐Income Single‐Mother Households

We investigate associations of housing assistance with housing and food‐related hardship among low‐income single‐mother households using data from the National Survey of America’s Families (N = 5,396). Results from instrumental variables models suggest that receipt of unit‐based assistance, such as traditional public housing, is associated with a large decrease in rent burden and modest decreases in difficulty paying rent or utilities and residential crowding. Receipt of tenant‐based assistance, such as housing vouchers or certificates, is associated with a modest increase in housing stability but also with modest increases in rent burden and difficulty paying rent or utilities. We find no associations between either type of housing assistance and food related hardship.     

The Social Basis of Agro‐Environmental Concern: Physical versus Social Proximity

Abstract In this study, we explore the social basis of environmental concern, specifically focusing on attitudes about the agricultural environment in relation to an individual's geographic and social distance from agriculture. We also consider the significance of rural recreational behaviors in relation to agro‐environmental concern. The analysis, based on data from a statewide survey of Ohioans, reveals a strong relationship between one's geographic location along the rural‐urban continuum and attitudes about agriculture and the environment. This relationship, though, does not exist once the effects of social proximity to agriculture are accounted for, suggesting that the relationship between residential location along the rural‐urban continuum and agro‐environmental attitudes may be spurious. The analysis also reveals a strong relationship between participation in rural recreation and attitudes about agriculture and the environment. We describe several conceptual and practical implications of this research for natural‐resource management.     

Maritime disputes and seafood regimes: a broader perspective on fishing and the Philippines–China relationship

ABSTRACT

In much discussion surrounding the relationship between maritime disputes and fisheries resources, emphasis is given to the role of fisheries resources as a driver of the dispute or how states use fishing to further their interests through territoriality. Yet a narrow focus on maritime disputes obscures the broader ways in which fishing contributes to interstate relationships. This paper uses a political ecology and food regimes approach to demonstrate how seafood flows between the Philippines and China represent power relations. China exports a significant volume of low-value small fish and molluscs from its distant water fishery. The Philippines exports low numbers of high-value reef fish. Current Chinese aquaculture investments are minimal. Poaching forms another component of this seafood regime, which is marked by environmental unsustainability and unequal relations between the Philippines and China. This analysis highlights the value of seeing fishing and fishery resources as constitutive of a broader politicized environment.     

H.R. 6: SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act: The Substance Use‐Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act

Section 2005. Medicare coverage of certain services furnished by opioid treatment programs. This provision expands Medicare coverage to include Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs) for the purposes of delivering Medication‐Assisted Treatment (MAT) to expand access to treatment options for Medicare beneficiaries. Currently, OTPs are not recognized as Medicare providers, meaning that beneficiaries receiving MAT at OTPs for their opioid use disorders must pay out‐of‐pocket. In 13 states, the highest rate of opioid‐related inpatient stays is among the over 65 population. Under the provision Medicare will pay the outpatient OTPs through bundled payments made for wholistic services, including necessary medications, counseling, and testing.     

Unequal Ecological Exchange and Environmental Degradation: A Theoretical Proposition and Cross‐National Study of Deforestation, 1990–2000*

Abstract Political‐economic sociologists have long investigated the dynamics and consequences of international trade. With few exceptions, this area of inquiry ignores the possible connections between trade and environmental degradation. In contrast, environmental sociologists have made several assumptions about the environmental impacts of international trade, but the assumptions lack theoretical specificity and are thus empirically under‐investigated. Bridging these two complementary areas of macrosociology, the present study proposes and tests a structural theory of unequal ecological exchange. The theory posits that more‐developed countries externalize their consumption‐based environmental costs to less‐developed countries, which increase forms of environmental degradation within the latter. To test a key assertion of the theory, a weighted index of vertical trade is created that quantifies the relative extent to which exports are sent to more‐developed countries. Using the index, cross‐national panel analyses of deforestation, 1990–2000 are conducted to test the hypothesis that less‐developed countries with higher levels of exports sent to more‐developed countries experience greater rates of deforestation, net of other factors. Results of the analyses confirm the hypothesis, providing support for the theory of uneven ecological exchange. Additional findings correspond with other sociological studies of deforestation, particularly those that focus on the effects of rural and urban population growth as well as level of capital intensity and rate of economic development.