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The Soviet Union was an irregular participant in the global food trade system and it entered the global market only when it needed to import grain. In the post-Soviet period, Russia continued its r...

Globalization of the food trade requires precise and exact information about the origin, methods of production, transformation technologies, authentication, and the traceability of foodstuffs. New challenges in food supply chains such as deliberate fraudulent substitution, tampering or mislabeling of food and its ingredients or food packaging incapacitates the market and eventually the national economy. Currently, no proper standards have been established for the authentication of most of the food materials. However, in order to control food fraud, various robust and cost-effective technologies have been employed, like a spectrophotometer, GC-MS, HPLC, and DNA barcoding. Among these techniques, DNA barcoding is a biotechnology advantage with the principle of using 400-800 bp long standardized unique DNA sequences of mitochondrial (e.g.

Although the food regime concept has become an important approach for addressing the global food trade, most of its applications have utilized qualitative methods. This article applies a quantitati...

International food trade plays an important role in food security, but little research has been devoted to studying crop dynamics in importing countries caused by trade. We studied the spatiotemporal patterns of soybean planting area in China (the largest soybean importing country) in response to soybean imports. The results show how the soybean planting area from 1980 to 2012 in China is dominated by two temporal patterns, both of which first increased, then decreased, with an 8-year time lag. The first increasing-decreasing pattern is affected by increasing soybean imports, and the second increasing-decreasing pattern is driven by decreasing domestic soybean profits. The results also show spatially distinct spatial patterns: soybean planting area decreased in southeastern China while it increased in northwestern China. Our analysis of soybean planting area helps China and other food-importing countries understand spatiotemporal responses of domestic agricultural cultivations caused by international food trade and agricultural pollution management.

In May 2018 President Putin challenged the agricultural sector to increase the value of food exports to $45 billion by 2024, up from $26 billion in 2018. The article surveys opportunities f...

Indonesia is one of the largest exporters of groupers, both live and dead, as part of the reef fish food trade. These fisheries sub-sector plays an important role in the livelihoods of fishing comm...

Alberta’s agriculture and agri-food sector can be understood using four conceptualizations of borders. Natural borders consisting of the Rocky Mountains to the West, the Canadian Shield to the East...

China has experienced notable loss of farmland and increase in food imports during the past three decades. This article provides an econometric examination of the interactions between virtual land ...

Using the UN Comtrade database and multiple sources of agricultural investment data, this paper outlines the emerging patterns of food trade and agricultural investment between Southeast Asian coun...

In this research, we investigate trade costs in relation to China-EU trade in agri-food products during 2001–2015. Major components of trade cost include transportation costs, border-related policy barriers such as tariffs, and local distribution costs. Our results indicate that trade costs between China and EU involving agri-food products, although falling, remain abnormally high. Consequently, we find that trade cost reductions contribute to over half of the overall China-EU trade growth. Our decomposition technique demonstrates that economic growth and trade cost reductions are the key drivers of China-EU trade expansion. Implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would reduce high trade costs to increase EU-China bilateral agricultural trade significantly. This is not fully captured in the gravity models where a static distance is usually used as a proxy to trade cost. The BRI will not reduce the distance, but it will cut transportation and other components of trade cost for China-EU...

The article differentiates between self-sufficiency and food security. The impact of Russia’s 2014 food embargo on the food system and food trade is analysed. Domestic production has increa...

Prior to the UK’s accession to the then European Economic\ud Community in 1973, Australia was a significant supplier of Britain’s\ud food. Membership of the European Union (EU) resulted in trade\ud diversion, closing the British market to Australian sugar, for\ud example. This article questions whether the UK’s exit from the EU\ud (‘Brexit’) might usher in a new agri-food trade regime, restoring\ud Australian farmers’ access to the British market, or whether other\ud opposing political economy considerations might prevail. Would\ud the UK unilaterally adopt free trade? Can a comprehensive free\ud trade area agreement between Australia and the UK, including\ud agri-food products, be negotiated? Any new relationship will need\ud to reflect the UK government’s stated preference for a frictionless\ud border with EU 27 (particularly on the island of Ireland), the World\ud Trade Organization’s rule book, and the interests of the UK’s farm\ud lobbies, as well as the UK’s quest for ‘free trade’ with the wider\ud international community.

Using panel data for six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 1995-2014, we assess the impacts of several major economic variables on intra-GCC food exports, and on GCC food exports to the world. The GCC customs union had minimal impact on intra-GCC food exports, but occasioned a significant reduction in GCC food exports. Unlike GCC food exports, intra-GCC food exports occurred among countries with similar relative factor endowments, in agreement with the Linder Hypothesis. Rising incomes and exchange rates played significant roles in both intra-GCC food exports and GCC food exports, while distance has lost its once-dominant role. This publication was made possible by the NPRP award (NPRP 6-064-4-001) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation). Scopus

The paper analyzes the evolution of food security in West Africa during the last 25 years. The Millennium Development Goal One aims at halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015. Although Sub-Saharan Africa remains far from reaching the hunger target, West Africa presents a better situation, with eight countries that will meet the target. The paper focuses on international food trade, analyzing the recent growth of food imports in West Africa and the impact of this growth on food security. The last part of the paper is focused on the case of Benin: the country achieved an important reduction in undernourishment since 1990. The analysis aims to highlight the role of short food supply chains in rural development and therefore in food security strategies. The department of Atacora, in northern Benin, is used as a case study to show the recent evolution of local food networks in a region traditionally characterized by an export-oriented agriculture. In conclusion the paper highlights the ...

The volume of non-tariff measures (NTMs) impacting on agricultural trade has increased considerably during the last decades. In particular, a large volume of NTMs has been established (and has pote...

In Cheap Meat: Flap Food Nations in the Pacific Islands, Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington explore the transformative processes of food trade systems. Eating, as so many anthropologists, jour...

Many scholars have mounted convincing cases that the engagement of Australia and the European Union (EU) has been characterised by skirmishes regarding the Common Agricultural Policy and its distortion of world markets, and lack of Australian access to EU markets. This article illustrates that agricultural and agri-food trade constitutes a relatively small portion of Australia–EU trade flows; that Australia exports more goods to the EU than in the past; and that, in some agri-food sectors, it exports more goods to the EU than the EU does to Australia. Further, it argues that conflict and competition regarding the Common Agricultural Policy need to be understood in the broader context of world trade and in the context of a new and deeper engagement between the two interlocutors.

The contemporary dynamics of states, borders, and markets suggest the need for non-traditional methods of regulation and international cooperation in areas such as border inspections and management. The emerging literature on cross-border regions and multi-level governance suggests a framework to understand this development within the general transformation of states under globalisation. To explore these ideas, in this article we focus on the arena of health regulation and the international agricultural and food trade. Multilateral bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) have endorsed the policy concept of “regionalisation” as a means by which states can preserve trade relations when sanitary (human or animal health) or phytosanitary (plant health) hazards threaten a country's trading status. In this paper, two cases – one historical and one contemporary – illustrate that regionalisation off...

The structure of Hungary's food trade expansion over the transition period 1992 to 2002 and its implications for labour-market adjustment is examined. An econometric analysis of trade and employment data suggests that changes in domestic consumption and productivity have significant influence on employment changes. But our results do not provide support for the smooth-adjustment hypothesis of intra-industry trade.

This article describes the evolving pattern of Central European countries' agri-food trade using recently developed empirical procedures based around the classic Balassa index. The extent of trade specialisation exhibits a mixed trend. The results suggest that the trade pattern has converged in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia, while it polarised in Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia over the period. For particular product groups, the indices display greater variation. They are stable for product groups with comparative disadvantage, but product groups with weak to strong comparative advantage show significant variation. In addition, in the Baltic countries many specialisation improvements occurred in those product groups for which world demand expanded at the fastest rates during the period analysed.

In India, the street food trade is a growing sector with its expansion linked with urbanisation and the need of urban populations for both employment and food. However, the microbiological status of popularly consumed raw street foods, general hygienic and vending practices are not known. We visited 75 vendors (50 having fixed stalls and 25 with mobile stalls) operating in three major locations: mandi (open market place), bus terminus and railway station in New Delhi and Patiala City. A total of 150 samples each of coriander sauce, of ready-to-eat salads and coconut slices collected were analysed for Staphylococcus aureus and Shigella spp. Enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus were detected in 91 (60%) samples of coriander sauce, 87 (58%) samples of coconut slices and 129 (86%) samples of ready-to-eat salads. Twenty-three (15%) samples of coconut slices contained Shigella (18 Sh. dysenteraie type 1 and 5 Sh. flexneri 2a), 13 (8%) samples of ready-to-eat salads and 10 (6%) samples of coriander sauce contained Sh. flexneri 2a. Street vendors lacked access to potable water, toilet facilities and operated under poor hygiene conditions. The results of our study suggest that street vended coconut slices, coriander sauce and ready-to-eat salads could be important potential vehicles for food-borne diseases.

Carmine is one of the few dyes currently certified by the Biological Stain Commission that is not assayed for dye content. Existing assay methods are complex and do not differentiate the three cochineal derivatives carmine, carminic acid and aminocarminic acid. The latter dye is relatively new to the food trade as an acid-stable red colorant and may eventually enter the biological stains market. The assay proposed here is a two-step procedure using quantitative spectrophotometric analysis at high pH (12.5-12.6) followed by a qualitative scan of a low pH (1.90-2.10) solution. Carmine is distinct at high pH, and the remaining dyes are easily distinguished at low pH. Four instances of mislabeling are documented from 18 commercial products, but the mislabeled dyes were not certified dyes. Samples from nearly all lots of carmine certified by the Biological Stain Commission from 1920 to 2004 proved to be carmine, but they varied widely in dye content. Batches from 1920 through the 1940s were significantly richer in dye content. Variability has been extreme since 2000, and most of the poorest lots have been submitted since 1990.

A breeding colony of European Starlings Sturnus vulgaris¸ was observed every morning for a month prior to egg-laying. The whole colony was either involved in singing activity around the nestboxes, or feeding as one big flock in fields. Switches between these 2 activities were sudden and complete with a short intermediate stage when all the birds gathered in a tight group on overhead electricity wires. The switches between singing and feeding occurred approximately twice an hour, and local weather conditions had no apparent effect on these switches in behaviour. As egg-laying approached, more time was spent at the nestbox colony, with fewer birds feeding in the fields at any one time. Later in the season longer initial periods were spent at the nestbox colony before the first feeding excursions to the fields, resulting in fewer switches between singing and feeding activities. The switches between the 2 activities also became less distinct nearer egg-laying, with the flock breaking up into smaller units and...

A history of food without history: food, trade, and environment in west-central Ghana in the second millennium AD. University of Michigan, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2012.728341 Afric...