This study examines the dynamic effects of changes in exchange rates on bilateral trade of agricultural products between the United States and its 15 major trading partners. Special attention is paid to investigate whether or not the J-curve hypothesis holds for U.S. agricultural trade. For this purpose, an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration is applied to quarterly time-series data from 1989 and 2007. Results show that the exchange rate plays a crucial role in determining the short- and long-run behavior of U.S. agricultural trade. However, we find little evidence of the J-curve phenomenon for U.S. agricultural products with the United States’ major trading partners.

A provision of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 requires country of origin labeling (COOL) for certain agricultural commodities. To comply with the law, producers, processors, and retailers face additional production costs associated with labeling, separating, and tracking commodities. Using estimated costs provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), we simulate the impacts of mandatory COOL on U.S. and global agricultural markets using a global static general equilibrium model (STAGEM). The results show resource adjustments that lead to decreases in production, consumption, and trade flows. The results assume no demand premium for labeled commodities relative to unlabeled commodities.

In the second half of the twentieth century, Latin American countries lost a substantial part of their importance in worldwide exports of agricultural and food products. Given this context, the objective of this article is to analyse the determinants of the evolution of agricultural exports from Latin America, paying special attention to the influence of regional processes of economic integration on exports and to their degree of participation in intra-industrial trade. We propose a gravity model with a data panel of total exports and product groups for six Latin American countries towards 39 destinations between 1963 and 2000.

Soybean Trader is a microcomputer simulation of international grain trading. The program uses the format of a graphics-oriented game to teach basic economic principles and to stimulate interest in agricultural trade. Profits from trading serve as a score, and competition is encouraged by ranking top scores in Traders' Hall of Fame. Results of tests with adult and youth audiences indicated that the program is an interesting and effective teaching tool.

Understanding the impacts of the Uruguay Round (UR) Agreement on southern commodities serves as a starting point to assess the potential impacts of the next global trade negotiations in terms of hope (expanding export markets) and fear (new competition). Key issues examined include whether or not the UR Agreement resulted in new markets or new competition for key southern commodities—cotton, poultry, tobacco, and rice. For new markets, export data were analyzed to determine if exports increased since the passage of the UR Agreement in 1994. Also, countries that are leading world importers of these southern commodities were identified and data analyzed to determine whether the U.S. is exporting to these top markets. Alternatively, to assess whether the UR Agreement resulted in new competition for southern commodities, countries that are leading world exporters were identified and data analyzed to determine whether the U.S. is among them. Data analyses was supplemented with interviews of southern commodities experts who assess impacts of the GATT-UR and identify issues for the next round of global trade negotiations.

China's agricultural trade expanded rapidly following economic reforms and the open-door policy adopted in the late 1970s. The composition of agricultural trade with China follows its labor-abundant and land-scarce resource endowment with imports of bulk and processed intermediates and exports of consumer-ready and processed goods. Constraints on U.S.China agricultural trade include tariffs, state trading, food security policies, and other nontariff barriers. Growth potential is based on China's fundamental demand forces including the world's largest population, a high real-income growth rate, an emerging urban middle class, and further trade reforms to be implemented through accession to the World Trade Organization.

With sustained appreciation of the U.S. dollar over the past 4 years, the exchange rate has again taken on importance for agriculture. This overview paper revisits the analysis of exchange rate impacts, reviewing the relevant conceptual arguments, summarizing the evidence economists and agricultural economists have marshaled from the 1970s and the 1980s and from several more recent papers, presenting some illustrative recent empirical analysis of exchange rate effects, and briefly examining the detrimental consequences that sustained appreciation of the dollar is having on U.S. farm policy.

The U.S. export share in the world peanut market has decreased due to heavy competition. In this paper, the Latin American peanut industry is modeled using seemingly unrelated regression (SUR). Based on these estimations, a scenario analysis was conducted. The results show that the Latin American demand is not affected dramatically by either domestic or world price shocks. The effects of price changes on net trade are noticeable. However, the world price does not significantly affect the Latin American peanut supply. The results imply that Latin American peanut farmers are more sensitive to changes in domestic prices than world price changes.

Elevated prices for major U.S. commodities have renewed interest in theprice sensitivity of foreign demand facing the United States. Although theelasticity of foreign demand plays an important role in discussions of U.S.farm policy, it is also a parameter that is much debated with the majorityof studies in this area published over 20 years ago. We provide newestimates of the elasticity of export demand for U.S. corn, soybeans, andwheat using updated data and empirical techniques. Our estimates are usefulfor practical policy analysis as well as for researchers seeking toparameterize large-scale simulation models.