Readings
Selected Trade
Agreements and Implications for U.S. Agriculture (April 2011)
examines how pending trade agreements (TAs) between the
United States and Korea, Colombia, and Panama as well as recently
concluded TAs between ASEAN (Southeast Asia) countries and China
and Australia/New Zealand will likely affect U.S. agricultural
trade. Model results suggest that U.S. agricultural exports to
Korea would expand by an estimated $1.9 billion per year if the
U.S. TA with Korea were implemented.
Where Will Demographics Take the Asia-Pacific Food
System? (June 2004) assesses the impact of expanded
urbanization, variability in population growth and immigration, and
aging populations on the Asia-Pacific food system. The ability of
developing countries to adjust to rapid urbanization will be the
most important demographic challenge, testing the region's capacity
to deliver a steady flow of safe, reasonably priced food.
Many factors determine the Structure of the Global Markets for Meat
(September 2003), including the relative availability of resources
for raising and processing animals for meat. Countries' preferences
for various cuts of meat provide opportunities for international
trade. South Korea has been one of the largest markets for U.S.
meat exports.
International
Evidence on Food Consumption Patterns (October 2003) analyzes
expenditures across 114 countries on major consumption categories,
including food and different food subcategories. Results indicate
poorer countries are more responsive to price and income changes
and also allocate larger shares of their total budget to
necessities such as food.
Structural Change and Agricultural Protection:
Costs of Korean Agricultural Policy, 1975 and 1990 (April 2002)
provides an overview of South Korea's agricultural policy goals and
outcomes in a period of rapid economic development. Protection of
agriculture skewed farmers' choices of crops and tended to keep
labor in agriculture (and out of manufacturing and services),
resulting in misallocation of resources. Despite the sharp decline
of agriculture's importance in South Korea's general economy, high
import barriers continued, incurring greater costs to the economy
in 1990 than in 1975.
South Korea's Agricultural Policy Hampered
Economic Growth
(June-July
2002) examines the impacts of the country's agricultural trade
barriers. South Korea s protective policies kept resources in
agriculture, which, combined with high food prices, limited growth
in the manufacturing and services sectors.
Economics of Tariff-Rate Quota Administration
(April 2001) discusses South Korea's quotas and uses its wheat
market as a case study of what can happen when a quota system is
dropped.
The Road Ahead: Agricultural Policy Reform in the
WTO-Summary Report (January 2001) calculates the possible
effects of various multilateral trade liberalization scenarios on
South Korea's agricultural markets.
The Financial Crisis Hit Korean Agricultural
Imports Hard (March,
2000) details how the 1997 international financial crisis severely
battered South Korea's ability to import, and how it altered
government policies regarding finance and foreign investment, and
sent the economy into an abrupt, steep recession.
Meat Imports by Japan and South Korea Projected
Higher (February
2000) explains why meat imports by East Asia are likely to grow:
declining competitiveness of domestic livestock production,
differences in tastes for cuts of meat, and increasing overall meat
consumption make East Asia a natural importing region.
Data
Production, Supply, and Distribution (PS&D)
contains official USDA data on production, supply, and distribution
of agricultural commodities for the United States and major
importing and exporting countries. The database provides
projections for the coming year and historical data for more than
200 countries and major crop, livestock, fishery, and forest
products.
Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS)
provides U.S. agricultural exports and imports, volume and value,
by country, by commodity, and by calendar year, fiscal year, and
month, for varying periods, such as 1935 to the present or 1989 to
the present. Updated monthly or annually.
WTO Agricultural Trade Policy Commitments
Database contains data on implementation of trade policy
commitments by WTO member countries. Data on domestic support,
export subsidies, and tariffs are organized for comparison across
countries. This queriable database offers various options for
viewing and downloading data.
Agricultural Market Access Database (AMAD) is
a publicly available information tool for analyzing WTO market
access issues in agriculture. It contains data and information for
WTO member countries, including tariff schedules, tariff bindings,
applied tariff rates, country notifications to the WTO, import
quantities, and other data useful in tariff analysis.
Links
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Other U.S. Government
International Organizations
Korean Government
Other