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The rapid urbanization and income growth have led to changes in the global food systems and nutrition transition in many developing countries. The prevalence of obesity and dietary-related diseases has become an urgent issue in developing national health policies. Taiwan is a rapidly aging society and its highest prevalence of obesity is observed in adults above 65 years old. This paper aims to find the optimal age- specific dietary intake pattern for both sexes based on the data from Nutrition and Health Surveys in Taiwan (NAHSIT). Goal programming approach is adopted to minimize the gap between observed diet and the dietary recommendation intakes (DRIs) from the public health authorities. Food consumption constraints is added to prevent diet plans from including unreasonable pattern and to minimize impacts on household food expenditures. Our result suggests that lack of calcium intake is a common problem for all age groups and both sexes in Taiwan and a shift from meat and oil products to more fish, nuts and vegetables is required. The age- and gender-specific results also show how goal programming modelling can be used to translate the DRIs into economically acceptable food plans.

As Blank (2008, p. 302) notes, off-farm income earned by farm household plays at least two major roles in agriculture. In a macroeconomic role, off-farm income is a neglected index of a country’s economic development. In a microeconomic role, off-farm income is one of the most important risk management tools available to farm households. Blank (2008, p. 133) further emphasizes, “Currently, economy-wide demand for labor is the engine of “growth” in American agriculture. A growing real wage is a sufficient condition for rural household income growth.” Gardner (2005) also points out that this is the dominant explanation for the catch-up of farm to urban household income levels observed over recent decades in the U.S. Like in the U.S., off-farm income represents a high and generally increasing percentage of average farm operator household income in Taiwan. Off-farm income accounted for about 80 percent of total farm household income in 2014. The contribution of off-farm income for farm household and rural development are too important to be ignored. In recent decades, the major trends of commercialization, globalization, science and technology are all ongoing and interrelated. The impacts of trade liberalization (e.g., WTO, FTA, or TPP) on Taiwan’s agriculture sector has been an important issue in policy debates. Most of the debates focus on decreases in major indicators, e.g., total output value in production agriculture sector, food security, food self-sufficiency rate and on-farm income of farm household. Almost all of them neglect or ignore those potential increases in off-farm employment and income from local economic growth with trade liberalization. For the research methodology, Irwin et al. (2010) provide a selected review of the economics literature over the past 100 years with a focus on the economic transformation of rural places and conclude that “Rural development is a general equilibrium problem that requires general equilibrium tools.” The development of computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling techniques by agricultural economists has been a major contribution to the entire economics profession and rural development, in particular. Computable general equilibrium models are the only ones that endogenously determine primary factor supplies as well as all prices and incomes in an economy. In this study, we built the SAM-based GEMTEE (General Equilibrium Model for Taiwanese Economy and Environment) model—a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model that depicts the economy of Taiwan and its demographic structure through time—a flexible mechanism to reflect how fertility respond to income and demographic policies, as well as demographers’ perspectives. The GEMTEE model is a CGE model derived from the Monash-type CGE model (Dixon and Rimmer 2002) and is calibrated to the 2006 Social Accounting Matrix of Taiwan as the benchmark. We use cross-strait trade liberalization as a case study. The 57 sectors of GTAP (Global Trade analysis Project) dataset and 166 sectors of Taiwan’s Input-Output Tables are aggregated into four major sectors: agriculture, agro-processing, manufacture and services. With all tariff rates eliminated from bilateral trade between China and Taiwan, GTAP simulations produce different import and export price changes to both economies. We then use SAM-based GEMTEE model to simulate the impacts of cross-strait trade liberalization on Taiwan’s economy, agriculture output off-farm income, farm household income and employment. Simulation results demonstrate that Taiwan’s GDP will increase by 1.78%, but total agriculture output will decrease by 0.9%. For per farm household income, although on-farm income decreases by NT$1,648, off-farm income will increase by NT$10,580. In total, per farm household income increases by NT$8,932 with cross-strait trade liberalization. With trade liberalization as the engine of growth and trade adjustment assistance (TAA) mechanism in work, economic growth in Taiwan’s agriculture may be maintained and in the long run off-farm income and employment will increase to provide a “safety net” for rural households.

In this study, the annual GFSIs of Taiwan over the past 15 years were computed to investigate the association between food security, food self-sufficiency rate, and trade liberalization. Within the past 15 years, there were significantly sharp declines in 2002 and 2008. We inferred that the main reason for the sharp declines in 2002 is the import tariff decrease resulting from Taiwan’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). And for 2008, an economic recession generated by the Global Financial Crisis should be responsible for the significant decline of Taiwan’s GFSI. In general, we found that there has been a steady growth trend of Taiwan’s GFSI since 2002 although food self-sufficiency rate has been declining. In conclusions, judging from the more comprehensive measurement of food security definition, trade liberalization improves the food security status of Taiwan.

International prices of most staple food commodities in 2008 reached a remarkable level that had not been seen since late 1970’s. Food commodity prices are projected to remain on higher levels over the next decade, supported by firm demand, unfavorable weather conditions, slowing growth in global production, expected high price of crude oil. This perspective poses not only challenges to global food insecurity but also offers opportunities for food and agricultural producers arising from the higher average prices projected for the coming decade. This paper attempted to investigate the impact of future global food price increase on 28 Africa least developed countries (LDCs) and to propose some policy instruments for tackling the impact of high food prices. Unlike most conventional studies on agricultural impact of trade, we chose in this study the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact (CAPRI in abbreviation, see Britz & Witzke, 2012) modeling system as the analytical tool. The market module of CAPRI is a multi-regional partial equilibrium model for agricultural products that covers 47 primary and secondary agricultural products produced in 77 countries of 40 trade blocks in the world, among which 28 individual African countries are accounted for, and the remaining African countries being aggregated into four trade blocks—namely, Africa-Rest, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. This study is, to our knowledge, thus far the very first application of the CAPRI modeling system to assess price surge and policy impact on African LDCs. Based on the parameters as estimated by Haniotis and Baffes (2010), we translated the projected oil price increase in the medium run (5 to 10 years) into agricultural commodity price changes in the global market. Oil price rise affects agricultural product prices in both production and demand sides. Energy is needed for fertilizer production and thus higher energy prices would push up fertilizer production costs. This would in turn lead to increases in agricultural production costs. On the demand side, as the price of crude oil increases, some crops are used as inputs for producing biofuel so as to substitute for crude oil, and thus push up the demand for grains (Mueller, Anderson and Wallington, 2011). Our simulation results indicate that African LDCs are adversely affected in terms of overall welfare when prices of maize, rice and wheat increase. The reduction in consumer surplus, agricultural income and tariff revenues are the key factors for the reduced overall welfare. The sectoral impact analysis reveals that total demand for wheat and rice, including both human consumption and imports, would drop as a result of substitution effect, yet maize demand could increases. In addition, African LDCs are projected to be more negatively affected than the other trade blocks such as Africa-Rest, Nigeria, South-Africa and Ethiopia. Important policy implications follow our findings. Regarding the adverse effects that international food price spike may have on the welfare of African LDCs, governments could invest to develop the wheat, rice and maize sectors in order to reduce the countries’ vulnerability to international shocks. Bilateral cooperation between African and Western countries should be more oriented toward transfer of technology, knowledge and managerial skills. Poor transportation could magnify import prices, and also impede the distribution of products between production zones and consumption areas within and out of the country. Improving transportation logistics and infrastructure would be helpful in reducing costs of food transportation to African LDC consumers. In addition, policies that promote for more diversified agricultural income sources, such as earnings from livestock and fishing, can help farmers withstand the unfavorable impact of agricultural price fluctuations on African LDCs.

The sharp increase in global food prices during 2007‐2008 has triggered the awareness of food insecurity problems and their impacts on the low income, food‐deficit countries many of which are located in the East Asian countries. The food‐security situation was good in relative terms given that the percentage of carbohydrates consumed is slightly lower than the world average while proteins and fats consumption are higher than that of other regions. The food security in East Asia is largely driven by domestic production performance, and despite the doubling of import volume during the last decade, Asia remains the least dependent of all regions on food imports. Nevertheless, the rising energy costs and grain prices induced by the increasing demand of grains for bio‐fuel exacerbate the undernourishment of the poor households in the region. While most of the government interventions focus on short‐term measures such as reducing domestic food prices through trade or price control, the risk of facing a long‐term food insecurity still exists which may render national action inadequate and require multilateral cooperation. Evidence has shown that agricultural production is rather vulnerable to climate change, in particular, temperature and precipitation changes. As Matthews et al. (1995) indicates, the impact of climate change on rice production in Asia is of particular policy interest considering that rice is the most important component in millions of Asians’ diet. Seventeen south, south‐east, and east Asian countries produce 92% of the world total rice supply, among which 90% is consumed in these regions as well (Matthews et al., 1995). Rice‐growing countries in Asia locate in different latitudes and the terrain conditions of the rice‐growing areas vary as well. As such, climate‐change impact on rice production of the Asian countries is quite diversified and warrants a detailed assessment at regional level. Here, we present a summary report from a recent study by Lee and Chang (2010) regarding the impact of climate change on Asia’s rice sector. Our study employs a multi‐region, multi‐sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model—which also considers crop suitability and agro‐ecological characteristics—to analyze the climate‐change impact on global rice market (supply‐side shock through crop yield change), with the consideration of changes in food demand due to population and 3 economic growth. In contrast to Mathews et al. (1995), our study places more emphasis on the economic side of food security issue regarding rice such as the effect on prices of rice and other competing food crops that is brought about by varied changes in rice yield across countries. We take into account changes in both the supply and demand sides to examine the impact of climate change by 2020 on the global rice market and food security for Asian countries should the world is developing as plotted in the IPCC SRES scenario A2. Among all these concerns, food price is the key. Thus, in addition to the physical impact of climate change, price‐induced adjustments in food production, which would affect significantly the reallocation of agricultural land among uses, are also taken into account. By identifying crop suitability and agro‐ecological features of land, the economic model we used here can model more realistically the production responses of rice‐growing countries to climate change, especially when diversity are found for the rice‐growing countries in their vulnerability to climate change. Food security of countries located in tropical and sub‐tropical zones may be adversely affected by climate change and the fluctuations in global food prices thus induced. The results suggest that among Asian countries, India gets the hardest hit of climate change in its rice production, and a huge increase in the unit cost of rice production. Thus India has to rely heavily on imports from the world market to meet its domestic rice demand. To fill the gap being caused by climate change, China also has to increase rice imports, with a relatively bigger magnitude than the other Asian countries. India and China have been the world’s top rice‐growing countries, and most of their rice production is consumed domestically. Should negative effects of rice yield occur in these two major rice‐consuming countries, their raised demand for rice imports may push up global price of rice, and in turn affect regions that are very much reliant on foreign supply. Our major finding is that as agricultural trade intensifies, impact of climate change, be it positive or negative, occurring in one region will spill over into other regions, through the channels of trade. As such, policy measures aimed to effectively alleviate food security problem should also take into account the geographically diverse impact of climate change on crop yield along with the agricultural trade development related policies.

A multi-activity DEA model with variable returns to scale is proposed to provide information on the efficiency performance of organizations with inputs shared among several closely-related activities. The model is applied to study the case of 279 farmers’ cooperatives in Taiwan. The results provide overall and individual performance measures for each activity as well as suggestions for future improvement. Inter-firm networking should be strengthened and thus policies that promote the consolidation of TFCs will not be sufficient to meet the public goal of institutional reform.

Tariff escalation becomes one of the major issues in the new Doha Round negotiation because it is viewed as a stumbling block to the industrialization development for the developing countries. When tariffs on products escalate with the stage of processing, the effective rate of protection, or the tariff expressed as fractions of value-added after deducting intermediate inputs from product value, also increases. Thus, tariff escalation potentially signals high rates of protection for value-added or processed products, and can inhibit international trade in these goods. The major purpose of this study is to examine the degrees of tariff escalations in Taiwan’s agriculture-related commodities and the economic consequences to reduce them. A simplified theoretical model is first established to illustrate the structural impacts and welfare implications of reducing tariff escalation. Then a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of Taiwan is applied to simulate the economy-wide impacts of three alternative reduction proposals.. The model distinguishes 160 sectors, 6 types of labor, 8 types of margins and 160 commodities compiled from the Input-Output tables of 2004. Simulation results indicate that if welfare improvement is the major policy concern, then Taiwan should favor the reduction because it improves the overall welfare of Taiwan. However, if farmers’ welfare is the major policy concern, then Taiwan should act against the reduction. In case the consensus to reduce tariff escalations has been determined, then the second-best choice would be to offer upstream industries relatively smaller tariff reduction rates than the downstream industries.

This article figures out the economic impacts on macroeconomy, industrial output, new energies and environment when the advantageous bioethanol and its feedstock production increase and replace the usage of gasoline in the future. A CGE model, called ¡§Taiwan General Equilibrium Model-Energy, (TAIGEM-E), was a linear/dynamic, linearized percentage change simulation tool used especially in the economic evaluation of environment policies. Results indicated that macroeconomic and environmental variables will all benefit with scenarios. Government should instantly encourage the production of bioethanol (and biodiesel) and it¡¦s producing resource because it truly can reduce the pressure of CO2 emission mitigation, and also can active agricultural fallow lands. It is an important long term issue.

This article proposes an extended three-stage DEA methodology similar to Fried et al. (2002) to improve the measurement of productivity growth then the assumption of free disposability of undesirable outpu t does not apply. A directional distance function is used to construct adjusted Malmquist-Luenberger productivity indexes which simultaneously account for the impacts of undesirable outputs, environmental variables, and statistical noise. Panel data for 264 farmers' credit unions (FCUs) in Taiwan covering the 1998-2000 period are employed to illustrate the advantages of this method. On average, the productivity of Taiwan's FCUs is found to have deteriorated over the 1998-2000 period. Although an improvement in efficiency has been observed, the major reason for the deterioration is found to be due to the regression of techno logy.

In this study we use Taiwan as a case study to provide an economy-wide analysis of impacts on Taiwan of WTO tariff reduction schemes with different combinations of thresholds and reduction rates. The model we utilized in this study is Taiwan General Equilibrium Model with a WTO module (TAIGEM-WTO, hereafter) that is a multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Taiwan's economy derived from Australian ORANI model (Dixon, Parmenter, Sutton and Vincent, 1982). Simulation results show that results are more sensitive to the scheme of tariff-reduction (i.e., Category 1, 2, and 3) than the tiered levels (i.e., A, B, C, and D) and as a strategy we should pay more attention to the arguments related to the amounts of tariff-reduction. Moreover, changes in nominal average tariff rates are more sensitive and shocks to the economy are more severe when we change the tariff reduction categories rather than the tiered levels. This conclusion also applies to the tiered reduction case when only sensitive products are considered. Finally, simulations with sector's bound rate calculated using arithmetic means have bigger effects than those using import values as weights. Therefore, sector's bound rate using import values as weights would be preferred.