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Agreement on Agriculture and Food Security: South Asian Perspective
Abstract
In South Asia agriculture is not merely a matter of commerce but a means of livelihood and a pattern of rural life. The agriculture sector however, is the most heavily protected sector in the world economy. The attempt to liberalize the agriculture trading sector through the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) negotiated during the Uruguay Round and secure greater market access to the agricultural products of developing countries, has had mixed results. In actual implementation the AoA did not mean much to the developing countries due to the discriminatory nature of the Agreement.
Further, opening the market alone does not serve the purpose unless supply side constraints are eliminated or minimised. Hence both a programme of sensible domestic policies as well as international lobbying to make the process of liberalization more transparent and equitable should be undertaken by South Asian and developing countries.
... Lee et al. [16] presented an algorithm for the identification of the damping matrices using frequency response matrix depending almost entirely on the accuracy of the measured FRFs, especially their phase angles. Adhikari [17] identified the damping of the system as viscous damping. Most of the above damping identification methods are based on viscous damping model and require the complex modal data which is obtained using modal analysis of complex FRF. ...
Vibration can be introduced in all mechanical fields in our life. Engineers try to avoid its negative effect leading in some cases to deformation in the machines. Many researches are dedicated to study the identification of damping especially in multi degree of freedom systems with particular attention to the source of energy dissipation. They focus on developing new tools or methods which may be used in real problems to obtain accurate results about the amount (or value) and the location of energy dissipation in the structure. The aim of this paper is to present an original procedure aims to experimentally determine the modal damping ratio of a mechanical structure. The proposed procedure consists of extracting the Frequency Response Function of the vibrating system using the video magnification method and then calculate the modal damping ratio using the 3-dB method. These experimental measurements are carried out by giving an external force on a cantilever beam, then the modal damping ratios are extracted using motion magnification. The obtained results show a relative error less than 4.2% between the experimental measurements and the analytical calculation for the Frequency Response Function (FRF) curves. The novelty of the paper is to combine the video magnification technique and the 3 dB method in a procedure that aims to experimentally measure the modal damping of a mechanical structure. The proposed procedure in this paper represents the damping identification as a simple and easy engineering application.
... As one of the least developed countries, Nepal was allowed to support its farmers through subsidies under the "Agreement on Agriculture." But the government took away the only subsidy it had provided for buying fertilizers and a host of other support as part of the liberalization drive (Adhikari, 2000). In South Asia, Nepal was one of the first countries to embrace globalization with extensive liberalization and trade openness to integrate the local economy with the global economy to achieve economic growth (Khatiwada, 2005). ...
Globally, enough food is produced to provide food security for the world's population. Despite this fact, the global food crisis seems to be increasing, especially in the agrarian societies of the developing countries. Though South Asia has been able to improve food production situation substantially in the past 50 years, it is still home to more than 40 percent of the world's poor, majority of whom are subsistence farmers. These subsistence farmers are confronted with multiple problems such as socio-political instability and uncertainty, and economic stagnation leading to migration of human resources. This causes labor deficiency in the agriculture sector of source countries. There is a global context to many of the challenges faced by developing countries while trying to ensure food security and sufficiency. So, it is important to know how local issues connect to the global context. As the world embraced neoliberal economic policies to promote a free flow of resources and capital, what implications does neo-liberalization have on food security conditions of the poor and subsistence farmers? This chapter critically investigates the rarely studied dimension of the political economy of food security of Nepal linking the local context to the global context. For our study, we primarily rely on the information extracted from secondary resources that include book chapters, journal articles, reports, and news articles. We find that there has been a dependency on free trade, and the unprecedented rise of multinational companies affecting the livelihood of small farmers in the global context. This chapter also investigates the historical context of the food security situation in Nepal-comparing the situation between the pre-liberal and the present eras, with particular focus on the far western region of Nepal. We find that after excessively embracing liberalization policies, the food sovereignty and sufficiency aspects have gone downhill. Economic squeeze leading to migration have been influential in mitigating immediate food insufficiency situations. But, in the long run, macroeconomic conditions such as trade balance and inflation rates of the country suffer. So, policies should focus on the increasing growth of food production within the country, the reduction in food prices in local markets and the increase in farm income, which improve the poor people's access to food.
... In the actual implementation of the URAA, developing countries did not gain much, due to the discriminatory nature of the Agreement. For one thing, developing countries strongly argue that market access opportunities have been greatly affected by increased protection and subsidies in developed countries (Adhikari, 2000). ...
Through the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA), the multilateral trade negotiations saw a turning point in the inclusion of agriculture in the trade liberalization debate. This development bears important implications for developing countries, including those of SADC, who have agricultural as a critical element of their economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security. This article reviews the progress of SADC countries towards implementation of the URAA. We find that the extent of SADC countries support to the agricultural sector is still within the URAA provisions. However, despite certain preferential trade agreements in place between SADC and the developed world, trade barriers are still high in many developed countries. A barrier-free access to developed country markets has important growth and poverty alleviation implications for SADC countries.
In ancient times, the great empires used food as a payment or offering to the gods, but it was not until the emergence of capitalism, as a social-economic formation, that food began to acquire the characteristics of a commodity. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) establishes world trade rules and focuses on organising fair, predictable, free trade between states. Foodstuffs do not escape the regulations of this organisation as tradable goods. In this sense, WTO rules on food increase the process of commodification and generate various harmful effects. In this respect, this process is one of the underlying causes of food disorders; it affects biodiversity and the environment and undermines cultural traditions, local food markets and the State’s food sovereignty. This contribution aims to assess the impact of WTO rules on food commodification; concerning the human right to food and the unresolved issues at the international level. In addition, the research combines an exegetical study of WTO legal instruments such as the SPS, TBT and Agreement on Agriculture. The study combines several research methods used in legal and social studies as the legal-doctrinal method, document analysis, historical method and, in a certain way, some legal-empirical research.
Rural communities have ways to maintain the health of their families, and the community environment by processing plants and herbal products during the Corona Virus Disease-2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. The study aims to design a community empowerment program base on the green economy in preserving herbs as local wisdom. The study used Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) is relevant to the design of empowerment by collecting data through interview dialogue, observation, documentation, and focus group discussions. Research informants were determined through purposive sampling, namely stakeholders in the government of Tegal Regency, Central Java Province in Indonesia, such as the head of the health department and regional technical implementing unit for the Herbal Medicine Tourism (HMT) area in Kalibakung, the Headman of the Kalibakung Village, herbal practitioners, and empowerment groups. Participatory research analysis was used to identify, and categorize problems, prepare action plans, evaluate the entire process, and implement actions. The results of the study showed: (1) The community around the HMT area has not been empowered to cultivate plants and herbal products, so mutually beneficial partnerships have not been established. (2) HMT area in Kalibakung and the surrounding community land have the potential for cultivating herbal plants that can realize health independence for families, and communities, so there need to be empowerment programs. (3) The empowerment programs for the cultivation of plants and herbal products could be started by increasing the motivation and inspiration for the benefits of herbs, knowledge, understanding, and skills of products, and the cultivation of herbal plants in a sustainable manner.
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