World Agricultural Trade Reform and the WTO Doha Development Round:
Analysis of the Impact on EU and Irish Agriculture

Introduction

This study is presented as a contribution to the debate surrounding the ongoing World Trade Organisation (WTO) agriculture negotiations. The study presents a baseline (status quo) view of the agriculture sector over the next ten years and contrasts this with a number of hypothetical WTO reform scenarios. FAPRI-Ireland has no policy advocacy role and the format of these scenarios should not be inferred as an expectation, or recommendation, in relation to the eventual outcome of the WTO negotiations. The report is produced by staff at the Rural Economy Research Centre, Teagasc, in conjunction with our partners in the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri in the USA.

In this study the EU GOLD (grains, oilseeds, livestock and dairy) model is used to produce a ten-year ‘Baseline’ projection for the main agricultural producing countries or regions of the world. The model is then used to examine the effects of agricultural policy change for various EU Member States including Ireland. It is linked to the FAPRI world modelling system and so takes account of and contributes to, the projections for prices obtained and quantities traded on world markets.

Although the ‘Baseline’ represents a projection of commodity prices, production and quantities traded, readers should note that these projections of the future are not the main aim of the FAPRI system. The main purpose of the FAPRI system and the FAPRI-Ireland Partnership is the analysis of policy measures, either proposed or actual, and the quantitative measurement of the effects of policy and market changes relative to the Baseline. The Baseline projections allow us to highlight key medium term market developments and draw some conclusions about future policy developments and their likely impact on Irish agriculture. The projections in this publication are not ‘forecasts’ or ‘predictions’. They are projections made by applying a well defined set of assumptions to our commodity models. These models have been designed based on our knowledge of the economics of major commodity markets.

In this study the implementation of the Luxembourg Agreement and the expansion of the EU that occurred in May 2004 are considered as part of the Baseline. The Baseline analysis and projections are compared to projections under a number of different WTO reform scenarios.

Acknowledgements

The development of the Baseline and scenarios for the analyses contained in this publication have benefited from the input of a large number of civil servants and industry professionals. In particular we would like to thank staff at the Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre and the Department of Agriculture and Food and members of the Minister for Agriculture’s WTO Consultative Group.

Thanks to our colleagues Julian Binfield and Patrick Westhoff of FAPRI-Missouri, and former colleague Robert Young, without whom this work would not have been possible.

Trevor Donnellan
Kevin Hanrahan
FAPRI-Ireland Partnership

Published on February 22nd 2006

Rural Economy Research Centre
Teagasc – Athenry,
Galway
IRELAND.

This publication, plus other work from the FAPRI-Ireland Partnership are available on our website at: www.tnet.teagasc.ie/fapri.

ISBN 1 84170 450 2

To view the full Analysis as a PDF file, click here.