Fair trade or trade fair? International food trade and cross-border macronutrient flows

Traverso, Silvio; Schiavo, Stefano

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104976

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In order to calculate the amount of calories embedded in food trade flows, we follow the approach of Traverso and Schiavo 10 and match product-level bilateral trade flows with entries from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Composition Databases. Absent country-specific conversion factors, this approach exploits the size of the US market and quality of the data to determine the caloric content of arount 380 food products 10 . Specifically, we retrieve product-level bilateral food trade data from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) trade matrices.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights into countries’ exposure and vulnerability to food trade shocks from network-based simulations

Grassia

Mangioni

Schiavo

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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In the context of a global food system, the dynamics associated to international food trade have become key determinants of food security. In this paper, we resort to a diffusion model to simulate how shocks to domestic food production propagate through the international food trade network and study the relationship between trade openness and vulnerability. The results of our simulations suggest that low-income and food insecure countries tend to be the more exposed to external shocks and, at the same time, they are usually not in a position to take full advantage of international food trade when it comes to shield themselves from shocks to domestic production. We also study and discuss how nodes characteristics are associated with the propagation dynamics and with countries’ vulnerability, finding that simple centrality measures can significantly predict the magnitude of the shock experienced by individual countries.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights into countries’ exposure and vulnerability to food trade shocks from network-based simulations

Grassia

Mangioni

Schiavo

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Regarding the dimension of availability , many authors point out how higher levels of trade openness yield, on average, a better food availability through both increased efficiency in domestic food production and higher quantities of food inflows for importing countries (Burgess & Donaldson, 2010 ; Dorosh & Rashid, 2013 ; Baldos & Hertel, 2015 ; Dithmer & Abdulai, 2017 ; Donaldson, 2018 ; Wood et al, 2018 ; Dithmer & Abdulai, 2020 ; Traverso & Schiavo, 2020 ). Trade openness, indeed, appears to favor a more efficient use of resources through specialization, while the higher competition and the availability of cheaper, high-quality inputs can push domestic producers to invest for productivity enhancement (FAO, 2015 ).…”

Section: The Potential Impacts Of Trade On Food Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second , since these latter effects seem to prevail, the paper further deepens the focus by concentrating on food trade and, specifically, on cereals trade. The importance of focusing on cereals trade is based on the relevance of staple food in the overall calorie intake as well as in food trade (Brooks & Mattews, 2015 ; Traverso & Schiavo, 2020 ; Wright, 2012 ) and in related restrictions, as shown by the centrality of cereals in recent export bans (Porteous, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Total trade, cereals trade and undernourishment: new empirical evidence for developing countries

2022

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While trade policies are considered strategic to shape national food systems and promote food security, the ultimate impact of trade openness on hunger is still highly debated. Using a sample of 81 developing over the period 2001–2016 and principally focusing on the prevalence of undernourishment, this study provides new empirical evidence. Firstly, it estimates the impact of total trade differentiating the effects that pass through changes in real per capita income—i.e. on the economic access to food—from the residual effects that it directly has on the other dimensions of food security. Subsequently, it concentrates on cereals trade, that usually is the most affected by trade restrictions and the most correlated to undernourishment. Finally, it explores the different effects of cereals trade in terms of imports and exports. Three main conclusions emerge: (a) trade openness contributes to lower the prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries and most of this effect is not income-mediated but, rather, passes through the impacts that it directly has on the other dimensions of food security; (b) such impacts are mostly driven by the trade openness of the cereals sector where (c) its import component turns out to play the main role.

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“…International trade plays a fundamental role in these strategies. During the last 20 years, the amount of crops traded among countries has more than doubled 6 , 9 , 10 , and food trade now accounts for 23% of primary human food consumption. Food trade is induced by the fact that some countries do not produce enough food to meet their needs and depend on imported food to maintain food security.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of trade agreements in the global cereal market and implications for virtual water flows

Falsetti

Ridolfi

Laio

2022

Sci Rep

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Understanding the dynamics of food trade, which involves a corresponding virtual trade in environmental resources, is relevant for its effects on the environment. Among the socioeconomic factors driving the international food market, trade agreements play a significant yet poorly understood role in facilitating access to worldwide trade. Focusing on the global trade of grain from 1993 to 2015, we investigate the role of trade agreements in activating new linkages and increasing traded volumes and their environmental implications. Through a data-driven approach, we show that the activation of a trade agreement among countries induces a more than six-fold increase in the probability of establishing a new link. Also, the presence of a trade agreement over time, not just its activation, relates to a more stable market since it reduces the probability of link deactivation by more than half. The trade links covered by agreements show larger flows and smoother inter-annual fluctuations. Furthermore, trade agreements encourage the development of more water-efficient flows by stimulating the exchange of crops with high water productivity values. The average economic water productivity of crops traded under trade agreements increases by 62% when considering total virtual water and even by 93% when focusing on blue water.

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Fair trade or trade fair? International food trade and cross-border macronutrient flows

Cited by 14 publications

References 42 publications

Insights into countries’ exposure and vulnerability to food trade shocks from network-based simulations

Insights into countries’ exposure and vulnerability to food trade shocks from network-based simulations

Total trade, cereals trade and undernourishment: new empirical evidence for developing countries

Role of trade agreements in the global cereal market and implications for virtual water flows

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