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

consumer acceptance valuation of and attitudes towards genetically modified food review and implications for food policy abstract an increasing set of evidence has been reported on how consumers could potentially react to the introduction of genetically modified food studies typically contain some empirical evidence and some theoretical explanations of the data however to date limited effort has been posed on systematically reviewing the existing evidence and its implications for policy this paper contributes to the literature by bringing together the published evidence on the behavioural frameworks and evidence on the process leading to the public acceptance of genetically modified gm food and organisms gmos in doing so we employ a set of clearly defined search tools and a limited number of comprehensive key words the study attempts to gather an understanding of the published findings on the determinants of the valuation of gm food both in terms of willingness to accept and the willing to pay a premium for non gm food trust with information sources on the safety and public health and ultimate attitudes underpinning such evidence furthermore in the light of such evidence we formulate some policy strategies to deal with public uncertainly regarding to gmos and especially gm food

strategic use of private standards to enhance international competitiveness vegetable exports from kenya and elsewhere abstract the paper examines how european retailers are using private standards for food safety and quality as risk management and competitive tools and the strategic responses of leading kenyan and other developing country supplier exporters to such standards despite measures to harmonize a single market the european fresh produce market is very diverse in terms of consumer preferences structural dynamics and attention to and enforcement of food safety and other standards leading kenyan fresh produce suppliers have re positioned themselves at the high end including high care segments of the market precisely those that are most demanding in terms of quality assurance and food safety systems an array of factors have influenced this strategic positioning including relatively high international freight costs the emergence of more effective competition in mainstream product lines relatively low labor costs for produce preparation and strong market relationships with selected retail chains to succeed in this demanding market segment the industry has had to invest substantially in improved production and procurement systems upgraded pack house facilities and quality assurance food safety management systems

real and nominal shocks in a two country price setting world abstract this paper develops a two country model in which the law of one price does not hold in the short run and which is consistent with the stylized fact that exchange rates respond more quickly to news than prices this is done by assuming that firms face lumpy information costs in determining what price to charge both domestic and imported goods prices are therefore sticky with respect to news and deviations from the law of one price ppp are due to exchange rate surprises the model is used to analyze the domestic and international impact of real and nominal disturbances

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

can the public sector meet the challenge of private research commentary on falcon and fowler and pingali and traxler abstract the growth of private sector participation in agricultural research has serious implications for pro poor technology development but there are other factors that must be considered new plant varieties are not the only things standing between resource poor farmers and secure livelihoods and institutional strengthening is also necessary in addition the current state of public agricultural research is cause for concern it is not clear how many effective public private partnerships can be formed the public sector needs a much clearer definition of its targets and priorities and funding strategies for national and international agricultural research must be overhauled

money stock targeting and money supply a closer examination of the data in a recent paper mercenier and sekkat 1988 use a linear quadratic model to examine the willingness of a monetary authority in a small open economy to target its exchange rate based on their empirical results the authors conclude that the bank of canada has displayed a willingness to use the money supply to target the canada us exchange rate we re examine their empirical results using a different estimation approach and with different assumptions about the forcing process of the exogeneous variables we also extend the sample period to include more recent observations while we find some weak evidence to support their conclusion the results in general suggest that a linear quadratic model may not be a particularly useful representation of the assumed exchange rate targeting by a monetary authority

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

revisiting the palm oil boom in south east asia fuel versus food demand drivers in the past 30 years palm oil production has increased ninefold with almost all the growth occurring in malaysia and indonesia this growth has been associated with extensive deforestation with biofuels often named as the principal driver however other drivers have been less examined in particular restrictions on genetically modified food in europe and on trans fats in many developed countries have led food companies to switch to using palm oil in production this article uses a price analysis to examine the drivers of palm oil production growth during the 1980 2010 boom soya bean oil is used in the analysis as the leading vegetable oil while crude oil represents the energy market the prices of these oils along with palm oil are tested in vector autoregression var and vector error correction models the two models consistently find that palm oil prices do not appear to respond to short run fluctuations in crude oil prices rather they are a function of lagged palm oil prices and current and

genetic engineering and trade panacea or dilemma for developing countries abstract advocates of the use of genetic engineering techniques in agriculture contend that this new biotechnology promises increased productivity better use of natural resources and more nutritious foods opponents are concerned about potentially adverse implications for the environment and food safety in response to consumer reactions against genetically modified gm foods in some countries crop production is being segregated into gm and non gm varieties this analysis finds that world markets for maize and soybeans adjust well to these changes and also that developing countries will divert their trade patterns in response to preference changes in important trading partner countries

balancing productivity and trade objectives in a competing environment should india commercialize gm rice with or without china india is considering approving genetically modified gm rice but it fears losing rice exports to sensitive countries with import regulations on gm food and may wait for china to lead the way using a multiregion computable general equilibrium cge model we simulate the economic effects of introducing gm rice in india with or without china in the presence of labeling and import approval regulations of gm food in gm sensitive importing countries we find that the welfare gains with gm rice in india would largely exceed any potential export loss and that the segregation of non gm rice could help reduce these minor losses we also find no significant first mover advantage for india or china on gm rice the opportunity cost of segregation of non gm rice is much larger for sensitive importers than for india which suggests that these importers would have the incentive to pay for the cost of segregation

materials price increases and aggregate adjustment in an open economy a stochastic approach abstract this paper develops a stochastic macroequilibrium frameworks to analyze the differing implications of alternative types of input price disturbances the distinctions between expected and unexpected permanent and transitory nominal and real disturbances are considered the introduction of input disturbances involves a more elaborate modelling of the supply side of the economy both constant returns to scale and decreasing returns to scale technologies are considered the analysis highlights the sensitivity of the macroeconomic impacts of input price shocks to their specific type the analytical results obtained are not unambiguous and are supplemented with numerical simulations

feeding the famine american food aid and the gmo debate in southern africa abstract the inclusion of genetically modified maize in food aid shipments to southern africa during the 2002 food crisis rekindled debates over agricultural biotechnology as the region edged ever closer to famine putting the lives to some 14 million africans at risk corporate pundits government officials and biotech s critics debated the health and environmental dangers posed by the new technology by situating the decision to send genetically modified maize to southern africa in the context of us european debates over agricultural biotechnology it becomes clear that the promotion of biotechnology has nothing to do with ending hunger in the region indeed american food aid shipments to southern africa have little to do with the famine at all instead i argue that us food aid policy following the 2002 crisis was intended to promote the adoption of biotech crops in southern africa expanding the market access and control of transnational corporations and undermining local smallholder production thereby fostering greater food insecurity on the continent

optimal foreign exchange rate policy for a small open economy abstract this paper examines optimal exchange rate policy for a small open economy which faces temporary and pemanent real and nominal disturbances it demonstrates that exchange rate stabilization is desirable if most diturbances are nominal if most disturbances are real then stabilization should be greater 1 the greater the fraction of exchange rate variance accounted for by permanent disturbances 2 the greater the information available to firms in setting the wage 3 the greater the fraction of exchange rate variance attributed to domestic productivity shocks compared with foreign relative price shocks and 4 the more elastic is labor supply

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

world trade patterns economic disturbances and exchange rate management abstract this paper construct and analyzes a three country stochastic model of world trade the objectives of this paper are to investigate the propagation of economic disturbances worldwide and to analyze the nature of optimal exchange rate management on the part of a single country faced with monetary and real disturbances accurring in all its trade patterns the paper analyzes the roles of bilateral trade patterns the type of underlying stochastic disturbances i e monetary vs real and transsitory vs permanent and of the optimality criterion in determining the optimal exchange rate regime

terms of trade and real exchange rates the canadian evidence abstract this paper presents empirical evidence linking the canada us real exchange rate with the terms of trade using recently developed econometric methods for nondashstationary data we find that the real exchange rate is cointegrated with terms of trade variables and that causality runs from the terms of trade to the exchange rate we then construct a simple exchange rate equation that satisfies several specification tests and performs better than a random walk in post sample forecasting experiments the results suggest that much of the variation in the real exchange rate is attributable to movements in the terms of trade and that the influence of monetary factors is secondary

estimating the market effect of a food scare the case of genetically modified starlink corn abstract in 2000 a genetically modified corn variety called starlink that was not approved for human consumption was discovered in the food corn supply to estimate the price impact of this event on the u s corn market we develop the relative price of a substitute method this method applies not only to the starlink event but also to rare events in other markets we find that the contamination led to a 6 8 discount in corn prices and that the suppression of prices lasted for at least a year

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

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

fda s regulation of genetically engineered foods scientific legal and political dimensions abstract the controversy over genetically engineered ge food during the southern africa drought in 2002 03 raised questions concerning the safety of ge foods and the basis for the safety assurances issued by national and international agencies in the case of foods grown in the us these assurances must be interpreted in relation to the food and drug administration s fda 1992 policy which remains in effect today this paper provides a detailed examination of the roles of scientific legal and political considerations in the development of that policy this paper reveals that the fda responded to political pressure for a permissive regulatory approach by exploiting gaps in scientific knowledge creatively interpreting existing food law and limiting public involvement in the policy s development common statements by the government and other proponents concerning sound science rigorous testing no evidence of harm and as safe as conventional foods are found to be misleading unless the scientific legal and political basis for the us policy is taken into account while this paper finds that the evidence for the safety of ge foods has been exaggerated by government agencies and other parties nothing in this paper suggests that ge foods currently on the market are harmful to human health to the contrary the situation is one of great uncertainty repeated recommendations that this issue be the topic of a major public research effort have yet to be acted upon

monetary policy and foreign price disturbances under flexible exchange rates a stochastic approach the analysis of monetary policy under flexible exchange rates has received extensive treatment during recent years particular attention has been devoted to the role of exchange rate expectations with a general conclusion being that many of the propositions of the traditional static flemingmundell model see fleming 8 and mundell 19 require substantial modification once such expectations are taken into account see 5 21 24 with few exceptions the analysis has been carried out in a deterministic framework the usual assumption made is that any monetary expansion that is introduced is initially ex ante unanticipated but having taken place it is then ex post expected to be permanent this assumption underlies for example the recent contribution by dornbusch 5 and much of the subsequent work that stems from it l this assumption while very natural is also a polar one in practice agents in the economy may attempt to anticipate monetary policy and the policies themselves

can biotechnology reach the poor the adequacy of information and seed delivery abstract the paper examines the expectation that biotechnology can provide significant benefits for smallholder farmers it uses evidence from current seed systems and variety choice in developing countries in particular it examines the adequacy of information flow and the performance of seed markets many of the biotechnology innovations proposed for use by smallholders feature qualities that may not be immediately obvious to farmers implications are drawn for the potential demand for these transgenic varieties the adequacy of seed systems is also examined including the characteristics of local seed diffusion and the experience of commercial seed enterprises the paper concludes that investments in public biotechnology must be accompanied by policies that encourage commercial seed system development and that empower farmers to be able to take full advantage of new technology

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

reforming the wto to defuse potential trade conflicts in genetically modified goods perdikis nicholas kerr w a hobbs j e reforming the wto to defuse potential trade disputes in genetically modified goods world economy 2002 24 3 pp 379 398

empirical evidence on the trade impact of asynchronous regulatory approval of new gmo events abstract this paper focuses on the ex post empirical analysis of the trade impact of asynchronous regulatory approval of new genetically modified organism gmo events we contribute to the literature in three ways first we define indices to assess the extent of asynchronicity and the relative strictness of the gmo approval authorizations of 40 countries considering gmo regulatory developments between 2000 and 2012 regarding cotton maize and soybeans second we introduce indices that are country pair specific product specific and year specific in a gravity model to examine the trade impact of asynchronous regulatory approval across countries by grouping the countries according to the state of their national regulatory gmo frameworks we have an even more differentiated view on the trade impact of asynchronous approval that focuses not only on the existence of regulations but also on their restrictiveness the results from the gravity model show that asynchronous approval has negatively impacted trade flows of cotton maize and soybeans it is observed that both asynchronous approvals and the restrictiveness of importing countries regulations to address the importation of gmo products matter meaning those countries that have already adopted a comprehensive gmo regulatory framework and have policies to manage the importation of gmo crops tend to feel a higher negative impact on trade flows

nitrogen tax and set aside as greenhouse gas abatement policies under global change scenarios a case study for germany the ambitious climate policy objectives of the cop21 agreement require the design and the implementation of effective and efficient policy instruments the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural abatement options depend on regional climate and natural conditions changes in the global economy global agricultural markets and regional agricultural production thus the assessment of abatement options requires consideration of the global scale the market scale and the regional producer scale we investigate two abatement options discussed controversially in literature both have been partially applied to reduce environmental pollution from agriculture a tax on nitrogen and the obligatory set aside of agricultural land our study provides an assessment of the ecological effectiveness and the economic efficiency of both abatement options under different global scenarios in our policy analysis we combine three applied policy simulation models to develop an integrated economic model framework this model framework considers the global the national and the regional scale and consists of the global general equilibrium model dart bio the partial equilibrium model capri and the regional supply model raumis in the different global scenarios the results show that both abatement options create relatively high marginal abatement costs and that the maximally reached abated greenhouse gas emissions represent only 15 of the quantity required to fulfill the policy targets compared to the obligatory set aside option the nitrogen tax is in both scenarios the more efficient policy with respect to impacts on production and environment a nitrogen tax is less forecastable than the obligatory set aside option our study illustrates the relevance of considering global economic and market change in the assessment of producer targeting environmental policies

public private alliances in biotechnology can they narrow the knowledge gaps between rich and poor abstract in the area of science and technology the knowledge gap between rich and poor countries is wide and increasing in the area of biotechnology research a second gap has recently emerged between private life science companies and public research institutions as a result a gap is rapidly widening between cutting edge research in the developed world and publicly sponsored research being undertaken in the developing world an obvious strategy for narrowing this gap is to form public private research alliances to overcome intervening obstacles public research institutions in the developing world need to adopt creative new approaches to the process of negotiating with their potential private partners these approaches must focus on leveraging the complementarities and potential synergies between their knowledge assets and those of the private sector concurrently institutional arrangements must be set in place that are geared toward managing the risks and dangers of greatest concern to their constituencies

money stock targeting and money supply an intertemporal optimization approach with an application to canada we propose a model of the short term behaviour of the monetary authorities of a small open economy that is willing to stabilize to some extent its bilateral exchange rate vis a vis a dominant partner the optimal money supply strategy is derived using intertemporal optimization arguments in a rational expectations environment the model is formulated so as to avoid the time inconsistency problem stressed by kydland and prescott 1977 it allows econometric estimation of the optimal money supply rule as well as of the parameters of the intertemporal utility function and of the function that defines the intermediate target money stock the model is successfully estimated on canadian quarterly data using maximum likelihood techniques copyright 1988 john wiley sons ltd

economic and welfare impacts of commercializing a herbicide tolerant biotech wheat abstract a transgenic variety of spring wheat was proposed for deregulation in north america in 2002 more recently the developer shelved this plan in this paper a quantitative model is used to analyze the possible economic impact of commercializing a crop for which there may be sizable consumer resistance at issue is whether and under what conditions the economic benefits from biotech wheat could be outweighed by economic costs the analysis also addresses the distribution of costs and benefits among stakeholders producers consumers and us taxpayers specific attention is given to the impacts on consumers in non biotech and biotech market segments and those in the united states and foreign countries under base case assumptions the analysis suggests that commercialization of biotech wheat could lead to a small net loss of total economic welfare results depend critically on several model parameters the rate of biotech adoption unit cost savings for biotech producers the share of the non biotech market segment and extra costs associated with a dual marketing system for wheat

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

consumer willingness to pay for genetically modified food in kenya genetically modified gm crops are popular in many regions of the world but their deployment in africa is hindered by safety concerns and regulatory issues although the continent is in dire need of boosting its food production although consumers acceptance of gm food has been analyzed in many continents no such studies have been conducted in africa therefore a survey of 604 consumers was conducted in nairobi kenya in 2003 to gauge consumers awareness of gm crops their willingness to pay wtp for gm food and the factors that influence their wtp consumers knowledge of gm crops was limited and only 38 of the 604 respondents were aware of gm crops people in higher education and income groups were more aware than others regardless people were generally appreciative of the technology and a large majority 68 would be willing to buy gm maize meal at the same price as their favorite brand consumers were however concerned about possible side effects especially on the environment and biodiversity wtp was estimated using a double bounded dichotomous choice model and the mean wtp was found to be 13 8 higher than the average price of non gm maize meal perceptions of health risk and ethical and equity concerns had a negative influence on the likelihood of purchasing gm maize meal whereas trust in government to ensure food quality had a positive influence on wtp people with at least some secondary education and those in the high income category were more likely to purchase gm maize meal at the same price the study concludes that because awareness is still low appropriate communications are needed to involve the consumer in the debate consumers acceptance in this study was high but the research needs to be expanded to rural areas where most consumers live and other survey methods need to be explored

applying partial least squares to model genetically modified food purchase intentions in southern spain consumers abstract consumers potential reactions towards genetically modified gm foods influence their commercial feasibility and determine the decisions of economic agents this paper studies the underlying factors involved in determining consumers choice behaviour towards gm foods in order to develop an integrated analytical framework reliable information about consumers behaviour towards gm foods should lead to the design of political strategies intended to make citizens feel safe in their purchasing choices in addition there is an analysis of behavioural differences due to consumers objective knowledge levels the research was performed in southern spain using variance based structural equation modelling namely the partial least squares pls regression technique the results support those arguments that connect consumers behavioural intentions attitudes and different factors involved in determining consumer choice because attitudes towards gm foods link consumer purchasing intentions to the perceived benefits and risks posed by gm foods furthermore there are some insights into the moderating role played by the consumers level of knowledge in their purchase intentions to gm food

preferences and willingness to pay for gm labeling policies abstract the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture is currently the focus of intense public and political debate press articles provide evidence that us consumer concerns toward biotechnology are increasing in this paper we analyze whether consumers prefer mandatory or voluntary labeling schemes through contingent valuation additionally we calculate the premium that consumers are willing to pay in order to subsidize their favorite labeling alternative we find that the premium associated with mandatory labeling is lower than expected costs this indicates that in spite of the concerns surrounding biotechnology consumers remain fairly confident with the current food and drug administration policy which does not require mandatory labeling