Bodies will examine agricultural trade policy under NAFTA and in Canada
BY ANDREW VOWLES
Prof. Karl Meilke of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Business has been named to lead two national agricultural policy networks based at U of G.
Both networks, whose members include Guelph faculty, will study and make recommendations intended to improve trade policies in the agri-food sector in North America. The organizations, one of which builds on work begun a decade ago, will be funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).
Ask him why Canada has established two policy groups for agriculture, and Meilke has a ready reply.
“The average world tariff in agriculture is 62 per cent, compared with two to four per cent for industrial sectors. When it comes to trade rules and adjustments, agriculture is where the action is.”
The Canadian Agricultural Trade Policy Research Network (CATPRN) will receive about $250,000 a year over the next three years to fund research projects under eight main themes: trade negotiations; consumer safety and quality; plant and animal health; environment and trade; developing country issues; adjustments to trade reform; domestic implications of new international trade; and structure of production, marketing and trade.
CATPRN will commission papers on these topics and administer a competitive grants program intended to fund graduate student research and an annual workshop. Besides the goal of sparking collaborative research in Canada, “there's also a commitment to training the next generation of economists,” says Meilke.
CATPRN includes 18 charter members with broad expertise in agri-food trade and policy representing 11 organizations and four disciplines. Most members are university academics; others are representatives of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Estey Centre for Law and Economics in International Trade, based in Saskatoon.
Meilke is one of six team members from the Department of Agricultural Economics and Business. The others are Profs. Maury Bredahl, John Cranfield, Jeevika Weerahewa and Spencer Henson, and associated graduate faculty member Karen Huff.
“We have a strong core group in trade policy,” says Meilke. “Within the core here, plus outstanding professionals from across the country, we can cover off all the material listed in the network's agenda.”
Following up on work begun 10 years ago, the North American Agri-Food Market Integration Consortium (NAAMIC) will now receive about $150,000 a year from AAFC to monitor, analyze and discuss economic relationships among the three NAFTA countries: Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Meilke says NAAMIC is one of the few non-partisan forums that bring together academics, government officials and the private sector to discuss issues affecting all three parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The group hopes to clarify public misperceptions about trade, often stemming from incorrect information and lack of access to relevant economic and policy analysis. Meilke points, for example, to the results of Canada's elimination of rail freight subsidies for grain. Although sectors in the United States had pushed to remove those rates — calling them unfair subsidies — redrawn trade patterns may have left those American players worse off, he says.
“When the subsidies were eliminated, more product flowed north-south.”
Members of NAAMIC will examine market integration among NAFTA countries, commission research, run an annual policy workshop and share results with key policy-makers. A key goal for the body is to help maximize gains and minimize losses from freer trade through appropriate policies and regulatory mechanisms.
Delegates to the second annual NAAMIC workshop, being planned for next spring in Texas, will discuss agri-food policy and regulatory co-ordination under NAFTA, looking particularly at trade in beef and pork.
NAAMIC will also receive funding from the Mexican government, the Farm Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Guelph's academic partners in the United States and Mexico are Texas A&M University and El Colegio de Mexico.
“Most economists believe there's a net gain to freer trade,” says Meilke. But he points to inherent problems in agricultural trade, notably polarization between a few extremely large producers and many smaller organizations — not to mention a dwindling number of family farms.
“I think we ignore the losers at our peril. I think losses are often overestimated, but we shouldn't ignore them.”
