perspectives of gatekeepers in the kenyan food industry towards genetically modified food abstract attitudes and perceptions of stakeholders are crucial in the acceptability of gm foods past research focussed on consumers but paid little attention to the food industry and its gatekeepers especially in africa therefore a survey was conducted covering 39 respondents from the milling industry and supermarkets the main processors and distributors of maize products in seven urban centres of kenya respondents mostly from senior management were well educated and had a good knowledge of biotechnology their major sources of information were the media for the supermarkets and brochures and the food industry for the milling companies respondents generally appreciated the benefits of biotechnology but had concerns about the environment although few people considered gm food harmful to human or animal health most respondents found traceability of gm products important but would prefer not to label them because of the costs and possible negative consumer reactions respondents were largely non committal on the use of gm products in their companies preferring to decide on a case by case basis the few negative responses mostly from the milling industry were affected by high risk and low benefit perceptions most respondents do not like the idea of labelling gm food better communication between research and the food industry is now needed and more research on the labelling of gm products

country of origin effects on product evaluations this article reviews the literature regarding the effect of country of origin on buyer evaluations of products the issue is important for countries especially resource poor developing countries that need to increase manufactured exports and for firms that source products in countries different from where sold marketing inferences are drawn and implications for future research are developed

explaining presidential priorities the competing aspiration levels model of macrobudgetary decision making this article develops a new statistical model of trade offs among defense nondefense and fiscal policy concerns as they are reflected in the presidential budgetary process the competing aspiration levels model calm builds on crecine s 1971 great identity argument unlike most previous attempts to model presidential budgeting calm explicitly represents the interdependence of decisions about defense nondefense and totalfederal expenditures calm models this interdependence as the result of the interaction of minimal aspirations for defense and nondefense expenditures with a maximum acceptable level of expenditures from a fiscal policy standpoint statistical analyses of presidential budgets for the fiscal years from 1955 through 1980 provide strong support for the calm formulation substantively the results indicate that fiscal constraints on total expenditures have progressively weakened that the maximum acceptable expenditure level has generally exceeded the minimal expenditure aspiration level and that when a potential fiscal surplus has existed the nondefense sector has been more successful in capturing a share of this surplus than the defense sector in keeping with traditional incrementalist arguments the results indicate that previous year expenditure levels provide a relatively secure budgetary base for both the defense and nondefense sectors both sectors tend to receive their minimal aspiration levels plus a share of whatever fiscal surplus exists the analysis also indicates that the executive branch has not been as strong a direct force for budgetary growth as congress

the political economy of government domestic expenditure in the affluent democracies 1960 80 despite the large number of studies of the determination of government expenditure in the affluent democracies most students of the subject admit that we know relatively little about the complex dynamics of spending change using multiple regression analyses of changes in nonmilitary outlays over the years 1960 to 1973 and 1973 to 1980 this study attempts to remedy some of the problems in the literature by providing new tests of several old hypotheses by introducing and testing several relatively new hypotheses and by evaluating such propositions in the context of an integrated theoretical framework and of analyses that span two distinct political economic eras results suggest that the dynamics of domestic expenditure change are partially conditioned by macroeconomic and political environments of particular eras overall the self interests and ideological preferences of policymakers the institutional and extrainstitutional political action of policy relevant groups and needs for state assistance emerge as principal sources of changes in domestic expenditure

political business cycles 40 years after nordhaus the aim of this article is to survey the huge literature that has emerged in the last four decades following nordhaus s rev econ stud 42 2 169 190 1975 publication on political business cycles pbcs i first propose some developments in history of thought to examine the context in which this ground breaking contribution saw the light of the day i also present a simplified version of nordhaus s model to highlight his key results i detail some early critiques of this model and the fields of investigations to which they gave birth i then focus on the institutional context and examine its influence on pbcs the actual research agenda finally i derive some paths for future research

reasons for household food waste with special attention to packaging the amount of food waste needs to be reduced in order to sustain the world s limited resources and secure enough food to all humans packaging plays an important role in reducing food waste the kn

household food waste behaviour in eu 27 countries a multilevel analysis abstract a large amount of food is lost along the entire food supply chain causing serious environmental economic and social impacts and most food is wasted during the final consumption phase especially in industrialized countries starting from the analysis of the main regulations and initiatives at various administrative levels and by introducing a two level framework for modelling complex household food waste behaviour this paper aims at investigating the behaviour of eu 27 citizens towards food waste by referring to the 2013 flash eurobarometer survey n 388 the multilevel statistical perspective enabled us to jointly consider factors at both individual and contextual levels as potential variables associated with food waste firstly by analysing territorial variability it was possible to identify groups of countries characterized by similar behaviour patterns and therefore target them according to the need and exigency of public policy interventions secondly at individual level it was observed that people living in towns and large cities tend to produce more waste thus emphasizing the need of diversifying policy interventions at local level according to the extent of urbanization moreover education level sorting practices attitudes and concern regarding food waste proved to be associated with individuals behaviour towards food waste thirdly public private partnerships as well as targeting community based interventions to address food waste should be encouraged

an end use analysis of global food requirements in examining the long term prospects for global food supply and demand the balance of research has favoured the examination of global food supply and not global food demand centre for agricultural and economic development 1967 chou et al 1977 council on environmental quality 1980 crosson and anderson 1992 fao 1993 mitchell and ingco 1993 bongaarts 1994 forecasting of global food demand has been limited to an exploration of alternative assumptions about the growth of incomes prices and population in particular the analysis and forecasting of global food demand has used income and price elasticities estimated from historical data which assume a fixed link between levels of income and levels of food demand for expository purposes this discussion presumes a particular pattern of prices with changing relative prices the link between incomes and food demand is more complicated but this does not change the fundamental argument being made here

elections keynes bureaucracy and class explaining u s budget deficits 1961 1978 the determination of u s federal budget deficits and surpluses during a period of keynesian fiscal activism is modeled in light of relevant social science literatures rational choice emphases upon electoral manipulation of the economy and keynesian stabilization marxian emphases upon monopolization andfiscal control of labor militancy organizational decision theory emphases upon budgeting inertia and a number of additional thrusts from other literatures are supported by time series regression analyses of 1961 1978 surpluses deficits the final model is statistically well behaved analysis of so called high employment measures of discretionary surpluses deficits supports all interpretations requiring discretionary policy making but an indication of automatic stabilization emerges as well a focus upon executive policy making roles is suggested as one means to further theoretical integration of explanations of state macroeconomic policy

electoral cycles and budgetary growth in veterans benefit programs while many studies have generated negative findings regarding the general existence of electoral cycles in economic phenomena we have found an apparently robust electoral cycle in veterans benefits this pattern was found between 1961 and 1978 but has disappeared since then we use this case to investigate the possibility that electoral cycles might contribute to the growth of government spending using two different methods of inference we find no strong basis to conclude that such cycles cause increasing public sector growth

gm free private standards and their effects on biosafety decision making in developing countries we provide a comprehensive review of international cases where gm free private standards set up by food companies in developed countries have influenced biosafety policymaking in developing countries we find 29 cases where private importers have directly or indirectly affected policy decisions in 21 countries most of the cases relate irrational fear of export losses to excessively precautionary decisions these cases are based on two generally misleading premises the belief that europe or japan represents the only market for exports and the perception that non gm segregation is infeasible or prohibitively costly in all situations our study also demonstrates the importance of information asymmetries across countries and agents and the role of risk aversion in seemingly irrational decision making the combination of these four factors helps us explain why presumed but unproven expected commercial losses still represents a significant impediment to biosafety policymaking in developing countries

welfare spending in advanced industrial democracies 1950 1980 this paper addresses long standing debates over the role of demographic structure class power class based political parties and democraphic political participation in the growth of the welfare state in advance industrial democracies from 1950 to 1980 it distinguishes four theories industrialism monopoly capitalism social democratic and interest group politics and tests them using pooled cross sectional time series data for 18 nations and seven time points total social welfare spending composed primarily of social insurance benefits is dominated by the size of the aged population smaller but important effect of nonclass political variables such as voting participation and electoral competition and interaction of age with political and other variables public assistance means tested programs however are dominated by class variables although evaluation of the theories must consider the domain of programs to which each best applies the results generally favor an interest group politics theo

divided government fiscal institutions and budget deficits evidence from the states does partisan control of american state government have systematic effects on state spending and taxing levels does divided control affect the government s ability to make hard decisions do institutional rules like legal deficit carryover restrictions matter using a formal model of fiscal policy to guide empirical analysis of data covering the american states from 1968 to 1987 we conclude that 1 aggregate state budget totals are driven by different factors under democrats and republicans the net result being that democrats target spending and taxes to higher shares of state level personal income 2 divided government is less able to react to revenue shocks that lead to budget deficits particularly where different parties control each chamber of the legislature and 3 unified party governments with restricted ability to carry deficits into the next fiscal year outside the south have sharper reactions to negative revenue shocks than those without restrictions

country of origin and choice of food imports an in depth study of european distribution channel gatekeepers country of origin preferences of distribution channel gatekeepers when sourcing food imports were investigated using in depth interviews in five european markets channel member perceptions of product country image related more to specific issues of confidence and trust in integrity of production certification and regulatory systems than to country image stereotypes this study integrates these trust determining factors with price perceived value constructs in order to build a comprehensive model applicable to food channel gatekeepers

mathematical models of the u s military expenditure decision making process mathematical models of the u s military expenditure decision making process are constructed estimated and analyzed each model contains four interdependent policymaking groups each group is assumed to have different goals and objectives these objectives are formalized and are assumed to be a function of actions of other policymakirg groups relevant fiscal and economic constraints expectations of actions of other policymaking groups and the perceived external threat given posited objectives and a decision calculus by which expectations are formed adaptively and partial adjustments made by the groups to their goals decision rules describing behavior are derived and estimated results suggest that policymakers do employ expectations and do make partial adjustments to operational goals

understanding food sharing models to tackle sustainability challenges abstract the current global scene is characterized by a huge paradox on one side there is the scourge of poverty on the other 1 3 billion tonnes of food is wasted around the world every year to address these problems alternative distribution formats aimed at reducing food waste and generating a positive social impact are emerging particularly food banks and social supermarkets recently opportunities created by digital technology and the phenomenon of the sharing economy have boosted the increasing number of web platforms and food sharing apps that are being developed by existing organizations or by new entities that work exclusively online the main aim of this research is to highlight following an overview of existing food sharing models how alternative distribution systems change in response to digitalization and how the value propositions they claim change in the online context a hierarchical cluster analysis based on a sample of 52 food sharing cases was carried out three categories of models have emerged the sharing for money model which is primarily a b2c for profit model to reduce waste and at the same time generate revenue the sharing for charity model in which food is collected and given to non profit organizations the sharing for the community model which is a p2p model where food is shared amongst consumers by way of conclusion we suggest that food bank seems to be replicated online in the same way in the online context the sharing for charity model however the model of the social supermarket does not seems to be replicated in the same way in the digital context but changes towards a more profit oriented approach the sharing for money model additionally in the digital scenario a new model emerges the sharing for the community finally the study highlights some preliminary evidences on the effects of the new forms of sharing on social inequality

food losses in food service institutions examples from sweden lowering food losses is a potential measure to overcome hunger and reduce the ecological side effects from the food system however few observations of food losses have been reported in the liter

consumer perceived risk model for the introduction of genetically modified food in spain abstract since the last part of the 20th century the search for new forms of cultivation and food has basically centred on the application of biotechnology giving rise to gm foods consumer acceptance is conditioned by the risk that they perceive from introducing food into their consumption habits processed through technology that they hardly understand besides information is insufficient in the consumer ambit and moreover it is influenced by ideological and ethical determining factors the factors were analysed that influence this consumer perceived risk through a structural equation model this study was conducted in spain concretely in the province of alicante located in the southeast of this country the main conclusion from this research is that the introduction of gm food into agro food markets should be accompanied by adequate policies to guarantee consumer safety these actions would allow a decrease in consumer perceived risk by taking special care of the information provided concretely relating to health for the most influential factor in consumer perceived risk from these foods is concern about health

impact of genetic modification on country image of imported food products in european markets perceptions of channel members abstract risk to the image of food exporting countries in foreign markets for food products has been advanced as a reason for them to ban commercial release of genetically modified gm crops the aim of this paper is to explore the reality and intensity of such a risk in depth interviews have been conducted with key distributors in the european food sector to ascertain factors that they consider important in determining reputation of exporting countries and to ascertain whether gm impacts on such reputations highly negative consumer sentiment towards gm in europe seems likely to continue to influence food industry buyers against importing gm food however no evidence was found that presence of gm crops in a country causes negative perception of non gm food imported from that country provided adequate steps are taken to avoid accidental contamination of conventional crops producer countries do not appear at great risk of damaging their overall country image for food products if gm technology is introduced

inferring shortfall costs and integrating environmental costs into optimal production levels for an all you care to eat food service operation abstract this study examines how optimal food production policies at an all you care to eat aycte facility would change were life cycle cost estimates of embodied co2 included in the disposal costs associated with overproduction in an aim to study production planning possibilities in a situation that places increased emphasis on the environmental impacts of overproduction aycte operations exhibit a lack of revenue associated with each item served since there is no per item lost sales value incurred when demand exceeds supply accordingly the second objective of this research is to present a novel method for estimating shortfall costs in a setting with no marginal revenue per satisfied unit of demand we examine empirical data from aycte operations at the university of missouri s campus dining services cds to infer the per item shortfall costs that are implied by cds management s historical production decisions consistent with cds management s stated aversion to shortfalls we estimate shortfall values which are between 1 6 and 2 7 times larger than the procurement cost and between 30 and over 100 times larger than the disposal cost utilizing published estimates of life cycle co2 and the social cost of carbon we identify a per portion environmental cost we incorporate the environmental costs associated with wasted overproduction and the inferred shortfall cost estimates into a newsvendor model formulation to identify new optimal production levels illustrating this approach with application to a set of food items served by cds we find that optimal production levels are decreased significantly 18 25 for food items with high environmental impacts such as beef and reduced less for foods with less embodied co2

total and per capita value of food loss in the united states there are few peer reviewed or major published studies that estimate the total amount of food loss in developed countries and even fewer attempt to estimate the monetary value we compiled estimates of the amount and value of food loss for more than 200 individual foods in the united states using the us department of agriculture s economic research service s loss adjusted food availability data and then aggregated these values to estimate the total value of food loss and the value by food group the results indicate that in 2008 the estimated total value of food loss at the retail and consumer levels in the united states as purchased at retail prices was 165 6 billion the top three food groups in terms of the value of food loss at these levels are meat poultry and fish 41 vegetables 17 and dairy products 14 looking more closely at the estimates for the consumer level this level of loss translates into almost 124 kg 273 lb of food lost from human consumption per capita in 2008 at an estimated retail price of 390 capita year food loss represents a significant share of household food expenditures our estimates suggest that the annual value of food loss is almost 10 of the average amount spent on food per consumer in 2008 and over 1 of the average disposable income this consumer level loss translates into over 3 kg 0 7 lb of food per capita per day valued at 1 07 day our estimates of the total value of food loss in the united states and loss estimates by food group are useful in that they can generate awareness of the issue among the food industry members governments and consumers potential large scale approaches and economic incentives to mitigate food loss in developed countries are also discussed

monopoly capital organized labor and military expenditures in the united states 1949 1976 in this paper we systematically assess the neo marxian view that military expenditures are used by the state as a countercyclical fiscal policy either to forestall a serious recession or to facilitate economic recovery in particular we examine the post world war ii political economic experience of the united states because the military expenditures thesis was most fully developed initially in an attempt to explain postwar american prosperity we evaluate what we term the naive model of baran and sweezy which suggests that the degree to which national output is absorbed by military spending should be dependent on aggregate economic conditions such as unemployment finding only inconsistent evidence to support the naive view we incorporate the insights of recent neo marxists especially o connor on the linkages among the monopoly corporate sector the unionized sector of labor and the state the empirical evidence appears consistent with this modified view with unemployment in the unionized sect

military keynesianism in the united states 1949 1976 disaggregating military expenditures and their determination this paper examines military expenditures in the united states 1949 1976 at a less aggregate level than was done by griffin devine and wallace assuming that distinctive and independent causal processes generate each of four subcategories that include nearly all military spending griffin devine and wallace s model can be transposed with little modification to the two most generously financed subcategories equipment and personnel however their model casts little light on the determination of spending for operations and maintenance and research and development still the level of industrial concentration emerges as an important source of spending on military research development and this fact is consistent with suggestions in galbraith s discussion of the planning sector preelection increases in military spending appear to be efficiently earmarked for increases in the pay of military personnel

optimal production planning utilizing leftovers for an all you care to eat food service operation abstract food service operations in an all you care to eat environment need to consider two conflicting objectives a desire to reduce overproduction food waste and its corresponding environmental impacts and an aversion to shortfalls in which some customer demands go unsatisfied a particular challenge in such buffet style operations is the absence of any lost marginal revenue associated with lost sales that can be used to measure the shortfall cost complicating any attempt to determine a minimum cost solution this research presents a multi criteria optimization approach to identify the efficient frontier of points lying between the minimum waste and minimum shortfall solutions in particular we identify optimal production adjustments relative to demand forecasts demand thresholds for utilization of leftovers and percentages of demand to be satisfied by leftovers considering two alternative metrics for overproduction waste mass and greenhouse gas emissions to account for the embodied chemical usage during farming transportation and landfill decomposing of overproduced food waste a statistical analysis of the changes in decision variable values across each of the efficient frontiers can then be performed to identify the key variables that could be modified to reduce the amount of wasted food at minimal increase in shortfalls or alternatively to reduce the amount of shortfalls at minimal increase in waste we illustrate our approach with an application to empirical data from campus dining services operations at the university of missouri our analysis suggests that targeted production level modifications rather than blanket increases or decreases can allow food service providers to reduce overproduction food waste without significant increases in demand shortfalls

u s defense spending and the soviet estimate there is a glaring and potentially important discontinuity surrounding discussions of u s defense expenditure policy making on the one hand a growing body of empirically based research questions whether the u s reacts in any significant fashion to the military expenditures of the soviet union on the other hand defense policy makers routinely justify defense increases as a response to similar increases by the soviet union the discontinuity is resolved in the context of a multistep model of the defense expenditure policy making process that incorporates a new estimate of soviet defense spending and mass public opinion once formulated the model provides answers to the following two questions 1 does the u s insofar as defense spending is concerned react to the military expenditures of the soviet union 2 if so what is the magnitude of the reaction the answers indicate that not only does the u s react to estimated soviet defense spending but that the reaction is directly responsible for a very substantial portion of the post 1978 increases in u s military expenditures

the illusion of choice defense and welfare in advanced industrial democracies 1948 1978 research on the tendency of governments to trade off welfare spending for defense has generated diverse and often contradictory findings this study attempts to clarify the issue of trade offs by examining expenditure patterns since 1948 for the four major na to allies united states united kingdom federal republic of germany and france when viewed from the perspective of long term trends in shares of outlays trade offs are evident when short term changes in expenditure which are more germane to the potential for one spending category to benefit at the expense of the other are studied no pattern of trade off can be detected a three equation model is estimated to control for the variety of possible determining factors of public resource allocation in none of the four nations does a pattern of trade off emerge except in periods of wartime or postwar reconstruction these findings are consistent with the ability of governments to finance new spending through either increased taxes or larger budget deficits the growing disinclination to use these methods however suggests that the potential for trade offs has perhaps reappeared in the 1980s

on the asynchronous approvals of gm crops potential market impacts of a trade disruption of eu soy imports due to their high protein content soybeans are important feedstuffs in the european union eu however the cultivation of soybeans using genetically modified gm varieties in non eu countries is increasing and the eu authorization of gm products takes longer than in other countries leading to an asynchronous approval between the eu and non eu countries that might induce soybean trade disruptions this paper uses an integrated modelling system to simulate argentina brazil and the united states ending soybean exports to the eu the impact on world trade and on the eu import prices of soy products is analysed with a computable general equilibrium model eu soy imports are shown to decline and the import price of soybeans in the eu increases the effects on eu agricultural markets are analysed based on a partial equilibrium model feed costs in the eu are found to increase with poultry and pork the most affected production and exports decline and imports increase however the effects of a trade ban are found to be less profound than in many other studies due to compensating substitution effects at various market levels increasing imports from third countries increasing domestic oilseed production and the use of other protein feeds

assessment of energy intake estimates of food supply v measurement of food consumption abstract national consumption indicators are frequently compiled using food supply estimates in the absence of reliable household or individual intake data the authors examine the relationship between these three levels of information and in particular the potential losses of energy in the food system comparing data from different countries and over time they demonstrate the unreliability of supply estimates as proxy indicators of consumption and question their current usage in statements about global hunger and the links between health and food intake

the food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste the unprecedented scale of food waste in global food supply chains is attracting increasing attention due to its environmental social and economic impacts drawing on interviews with food waste specialists this study construes the boundaries between food surplus and food waste avoidable and unavoidable food waste and between waste prevention and waste management this study suggests that the first step towards a more sustainable resolution of the food waste issue is to adopt a sustainable production and consumption approach and tackle food surplus and waste throughout the global food supply chain the authors examine the factors that give rise to food waste throughout the food supply chain and propose a framework to identify and prioritize the most appropriate options for prevention and management of food waste the proposed framework interprets and applies the waste hierarchy in the context of food waste it considers the three dimensions of sustainability environmental economic and social offering a more holistic approach in addressing food waste additionally it considers the materiality and temporality of food the food waste hierarchy posits that prevention through minimization of food surplus and avoidable food waste is the most attractive option the second most attractive option involves the distribution of food surplus to groups affected by food poverty followed by the option of converting food waste to animal feed although the proposed food waste hierarchy requires a fundamental re think of the current practices and systems in place it has the potential to deliver substantial environmental social and economic benefits

a sequential model of congressional appropriations while the incrementalist and externalist models of budgeting are sometimes viewed as competing interpretations they are not mutually exclusive this research tests a model incorporating both topdown and bottom up features of federal budgeting the sequential model has several features not commonly found in the empirical budgeting literature including 1 treatment of the sequential processes of budgeting 2 use of a budget constraint which incorporates top down budget influences and recognizes the interdependence of agency budgets 3 linkage of appropriations to revenues and the budget deficit and 4 application of the linear expenditure system the sequential model is tested by a set of simultaneous equations which account for a substantial portion of the variance in appropriations at each level of analysis an empirical comparison with a simple incrementalist model indicates that a model including a budget constraint and external economic and political variables provides a superior explanation of federal budgeting the pioneering study on incrementalism in federal budgeting by davis dempster and wildavsky 1966 concluded that budgetary outcomes can be characterized by a simple set of decision rules that are linear and temporally stable incrementalist theory emphasizes the importance of marginal adjustments in the previous year s budgetary base negotiation strategies of the key participants in the budgeting process congressional subcommittees omb political constituencies and the agencies and the overall stability of budgetary outcomes are also important aspects of the incrementalist view despite periodic attacks the incrementalist view and the simple linear decision rules suggested by davis dempster and wildavsky have become the standard by which other interpretations of budgetary processes are measured in a later study davis dempster and wildavsky 1974 pursued some of the shift points and anomalies of budgetary behavior by including a number of political economic and social variables in their original incrementalist models they concluded that the process that generates agency requests is highly internalized and generally little influenced by the outside world they found that in some cases 14 of 53 agencies congressional appropriations were significantly affected by at least one environmental variable but that for the most part agencies live in worlds of their own in this and other empirical studies of budgeting however environmental influences generally have been included on an ad hoc basis rather than being incorporated systematically into a theoretical framework

modeling u s budgetary and fiscal policy outcomes a disaggregated systemwide perspective this paper develops and estimates a model of u s federal budgetary outcomes that allows for considerable disaggregation across spending categories while providing through cross equation coefficient restrictions substantially more statistical power than traditional approaches we identify significant top down fiscal policy effects on budgetary allocations primarily within the defense budget budgetary responses to macroeconomic conditions are generally countercyclical although middle class entitlements appear to react procyclically to inflation political control of congress influences budgetary outcomes with democrats giving higher priority to domestic spending programs the relative rate of public sector inflation affects spending growth consistent with baumol s disease public opinion affects defense and low income entitlement spending defense spending has also been influenced by perceived soviet threat as well as the level of armed conflict there appear to be small election year effects although not of the sort predicted by political business cycle models with a few exceptions administration specific impacts are relatively small and not systematically related to the party of the president

world population and food supply abstract criteria for assessing the adequacy of a national average diet are proposed and the global average cereal production per capita needed to provide an adequate average diet is calculated the technical feasibility of maintaining global food production per capita up to the year 2050 is assessed the required input of nitrogen fertilizer is estimated and the water supply in relation to crop evapotranspiration is discussed it is shown that maintenance of the present global cereal production per capita would be accompanied by a moderate increase in grain consumption per capita in the less developed countries but that this will involve a major increase in the net import of grain from the more developed countries achievement of a satisfactory average diet in the less developed countries as a whole cannot be achieved until the population of this group of countries has declined to a level substantially below its future peak

what labelling policy for consumer choice the case of genetically modified food in canada and europe faced with divergent opinions among consumers on the use of genetically modified gm foods canada has adopted a voluntary labelling approach for non gm foods whereas the european union has a mandatory labelling policy for gm foods interestingly both labelling systems have resulted in very little if any additional consumer choice using an analytical model we show that the coexistence of gm and non gm products at the retail level depends on the labelling policy consumer perceptions and the type of product although voluntary labelling tends to favour the use of gm products it is more likely to provide consumer choice confrontes a des opinions publiques divergentes sur l usage des aliments genetiquement modifies gm le canada a adopte une politique d etiquetage volontaire pour les aliments non gm alors que l union europeenne a mis en place une politique d etiquetage obligatoire des aliments gm curieusement ces deux systemes d etiquetage n ont pas reellement permis de faciliter le choix des consommateurs a l aide d un modele analytique nous demontrons que la coexistence des produits gm et non gm au niveau du commerce de detail depend de la politique d etiquetage de la perception des consommateurs et du type de produit bien que l etiquetage volontaire ait tendance a favoriser l usage des produits gm cette approche est plus a meme de faciliter le choix du consommateur que l etiquetage obligatoire

the real threat to gm crops in poor countries consumer and policy resistance to gm foods in rich countries abstract in most poor countries today farmers still plant no gm food or feed crops at all some are now planting gm cotton but gm food and feed crops have not yet been grown commercially anywhere in developing asia or the middle east and in only one african country south africa government authorities in most of these countries have not yet given farmers official permission to plant any gm food or feed crops superficially in most cases because of precautionary concerns about biological safety the more fundamental reason is now a fear that consumers in high income importing regions such as europe and japan will shun imports from any country that begins planting gm varieties the new eu regulation calling for strict labelling and traceability on all gm derived foods and feeds requiring a costly physical segregation of gm from non gm all the way up the marketing chain will further discourage the planting of gm crops in poor countries