Women traders in agricultural products: aspects of the women in development programme of UNECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Recommended treatment for processed agricultural products vis-a-vis the Agricultural Marketing Protocol (AMP)

Informa sobre recomendaciones surgidas de un Grupo de Trabajo nombrado por el Consejo de Ministros del Mercado Comun de la Comunidad del Caribe, en lo que se refiere a la comercializacion de productos agricolas procesados

Market Access in Switzerland and in the European Union for Agricultural Products from Least Developed Countries

The introduction of the so-called “duty free quota free” treatment (DFQF) for all products from least developed countries (LDCs), in particular by the European Communities (EC) and by Switzerland, raised expectations of increased agricultural exports for these 49 countries. Despite the high tariff differential LDCs now enjoy over their competitors, especially for agricultural products and particularly in Switzerland, the results until 2007 are dismal: with the exception of sugar exports to the EC, LDCs have not been able to substantially increase their agricultural exports to Europe. This study analyses the result-ing tariff situation and the remaining non-tariff barriers. In many instances it is not cus-toms duties but the sanitary and phytosanitary barriers which turn out to be the single most important hurdle preventing trade. For instance, almost no LDC-based company can supply animal-based products. Similarly, certain private standards set by proces-sors and retailers prevent imports, particularly from LDCs, far more effectively than tar-iffs. Several gateways into this “European cordon sanitaire” are proposed. Only if offered in the context of a package of various carefully coordinated measures, DFQF could yet have a real impact on trade from LDCs. As it stands, this treatment constitutes only a nice-to-have but still largely ineffective instrument of trade development.

Unbalanced value chain in perishable agricultural products.

Value chain in agriculture is a current issue affecting from farmers to consumers. It questions important issues as profitability, and even though continuity of certain sectors. Although there has been an evolution along time in the structure and concentration of intermediate and final levels of the value chain between distribution and retail sector, a similar evolution seems not to arrive at the initial level of the chain, the production sector. This produces large imbalances in power and leverage between levels of the value chain that could imply several problems for rural actors. Relatively little attention has been paid to possible market distortions caused by the high level of concentration distribution side of the agrifood system.