Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
portive role? If private markets are given a larger role, what is the new public
role? Can alternative mechanisms, such as variable levies and futures markets,
be more cost effective in achieving the same objective? Second, does the need
for social safety net (SSN) programs persist, even when relying on private trade
to ensure efficient resource allocation? If so, do such programs have to be ad-
ministered in current form—that is, linking them by the parastatals or other gov-
ernment organizations? Has the time come to move from a food-transfer mode
to a cash-transfer mode? Clearly, the answers to these questions are context-
specific and hard to generalize, but an attempt is made in the concluding chap-
ter to synthesize the cross-country lessons and suggest how the changes can be
achieved.
Organization of the topic
The topic includes nine chapters, which are organized into four parts: (I) Intro-
duction and Cross-Country Synthesis, (II) Case Studies from South Asia, (III)
Case Studies from East Asia, and (IV) Policy Implications. This organization
is guided by geography and the historical origins of food price policies. Three
South Asian countries—India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—have a common
British colonial heritage; of the three East Asian cases, Indonesia and the Philip-
pines share a common vision, whereas Vietnam stands by itself as a special case,
as it has moved from central planning to adopting more liberalized grain mar-
ket policies. 3
Part I consists of two chapters that include this introduction and a cross-
country synthesis of six Asian countries. The synthesis suggests that the para-
statals have outlived their usefulness. Although the underlying rationales have
changed, many countries in Asia continue to practice an outdated set of poli-
cies and provide regulatory supports to the parastatals. Holding on to the old
practices can only mean holding back from reaping the benefits that current
policies have to offer (Chapter 2).
The South Asian case studies, presented in Part II, offer highly contrast-
ing experiences, although all three countries have the same colonial origin.
Whereas India and Pakistan continue to intervene heavily, with different insti-
tutional mechanisms, Bangladesh has successfully reformed its policies. The
Indian case study demonstrates that, while the broad rationales for public in-
tervention have lost their significance, the degree of government intervention
has increased in recent years; and the country's parastatal, the Food Corpora-
3. One of our reviewers reminded us that the Indonesian and Philippine programs had sim-
ilar origins, the common vision of Leon Mears, who first helped build the rice marketing parastatals
in Indonesia (well before the emergence of the Food Logistics Agency in Indonesia [Badan Uru-
san Logistik, or BULOG] in 1967) and then took his experience to the Philippines, where he was
instrumental in designing the National Food Authority (NFA) and advising its first two decades.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search