Bøger af Randy Schnepf

In late 2002, Brazil initiated a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement case (DS267) against specific provisions of the U.S. cotton program. On September 8, 2004, a WTO dispute settlement (DS) panel ruled against the United States on several key issues in case DS267. The United States appealed the case to the WTO's Appellate Body (AB) which, on March 3, 2005, confirmed the earlier DS panel findings against U.S. cotton programs. Key findings include (1) U.S. domestic cotton subsidies have exceeded WTO commitments of the 1992 benchmark year, thereby losing the protection afforded by the "Peace Clause," which shielded them from substantive challenges; (2) the two major types of direct payments made under U.S. farm programs - Production Flexibility Contract payments of the 1996 Farm Act and the Direct Payments of the 2002 Farm Act - do not qualify for WTO exemptions from reduction commitments as fully decoupled income support and should therefore count against the "Peace Clause" limits; (3) Step-2 program payments are prohibited subsidies; (4) U.S. export credit guarantees are effectively export subsidies, making them subject to previously notified export subsidy commitments; and (5) U.S. domestic support measures that are "contingent on market prices" have resulted in excess cotton production and exports that, in turn, have caused low international prices and have resulted in "serious prejudice" to Brazil.

Since the late 1970s, U.S. policy makers at both the federal and state levels have enacted a variety of incentives, regulations, and programs to encourage the production and use of agriculture-based renewable energy. Motivations cited for these legislative initiatives include energy security concerns, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and raising domestic demand for U.S.-produced farm products. Agricultural households and rural communities have responded to these government incentives and have expanded their production of renewable energy, primarily in the form of biofuels and wind power, every year since 1996. The production of ethanol (the primary biofuel produced by the agricultural sector) has risen from about 175 million gallons in 1980 to 3.9 billion gallons per year in 2005. However, U.S. ethanol production capacity has been expanding rapidly. Current ethanol production capacity is 5.4 billion gallons per year (as of December 29, 2006), with another 6.0 billion gallons of capacity under construction and potentially online by early 2008. Biodiesel production is at a much smaller level, but has also shown growth rising from 0.5 million gallons in 1999 to an estimated 75 million gallons in 2005. Wind energy systems production capacity has also grown rapidly, rising from 1,706 megawatts in 1997 to an estimated 10,492 megawatts by October 23, 2006. Despite this rapid growth, agriculture- and rural-based energy production accounted for only about 0.6% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2004.

Agriculture requires energy as an important input to production. Agriculture uses energy directly as fuel or electricity to operate machinery and equipment, to heat or cool buildings, and for lighting on the farm, and indirectly in the fertilizers and chemicals produced off the farm. In 2002, the U.S. agricultural sector used an estimated 1.7 quadrillion Btu of energy from both direct (1.1 quadrillion Btu) and indirect (0.6 quadrillion Btu) sources. However, agriculture's total use of energy is low relative to other U.S. producing sectors. In 2002, agriculture's share of total U.S. direct energy consumption was about 1%. Agriculture's shares of nitrogen and pesticide use ? two of the major indirect agricultural uses identified by the U.S. Dept of Agriculture (USDA) ? are signficantly higher at about 56% and 67%, respectively.

Five of the nation's top agricultural production states, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin have traditionally relied on the Upper Mississippi River-Illinois Waterway (UMR-IWW) navigation system as their principal conduit for export-bound agricultural products mostly bulk corn and soybeans. The low-cost, high-volume capability of barge transportation has long provided an important competitive advantage for U.S. agricultural products in international markets. Agricultural barge freight on the UMR-IWW grew rapidly for several decades in the post-WWII era, but has leveled off since the early 1980s. There is disagreement over the cause for this lack of growth in barge demand.

Federal policy has played a key role in the emergence of the U.S. biofuels industry. Policy measures include minimum renewable fuel usage requirements, blending and production tax credits, an import tariff, loans and loan guarantees, and research grants. This report focuses on the mandated minimum usage requirements-referred to as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)- whereby a minimum volume of biofuels is to be used in the national transportation fuel supply each year. It describes the general nature of the RFS mandate and its implementation, and outlines some emerging issues related to the sustainability of the continued growth in U.S. biofuels production needed to fulfill the expanding RFS mandate, as well as the emergence of potential unintended consequences of this rapid expansion.

Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) Agreement on Agriculture (AA), member countries agreed to general rules regarding disciplines on domestic subsidies (as well as on export subsidies and market access). The AA's goal was to provide a framework for the leading members of the WTO to make changes in their domestic farm policies to facilitate more open trade. Under the AA, domestic spending is disaggregated according to those outlays that have the greatest potential to distort agricultural markets (i.e., amber box) and therefore are subject to spending limits, and more benign outlays (i.e., which cause less market distortion) that are exempted from spending limits under green box, blue box, de minimis, or special and differential treatment exemptions.

Since the late 1970s, U.S. policymakers at both the federal and state levels have authorized a variety of incentives, regulations, and programs to encourage the production and use of agriculture-based biofuels-i.e., any fuel produced from biological materials. Initially, federal biofuels policies were developed to help kick-start the biofuels industry during its early development, when neither production capacity nor a market for the finished product was widely available. Federal policy (e.g., tax credits, import tariffs, grants, loans, and loan guarantees) has played a key role in helping to close the price gap between biofuels and cheaper petroleum fuels. Now, as the industry has evolved, other policy goals (e.g., national energy security, climate change concerns, support for rural economies) are cited by proponents as justification for continuing or enhancing federal policy support. The U.S. biofuels sector responded to these government incentives by expanding output every year from 1980 through 2011 (with the exception of 1996), with important implications for the domestic and international food and fuel sectors. Production of the primary U.S. biofuel, ethanol (derived from corn starch), has risen from about 175 million gallons in 1980 to nearly 14 billion gallons in 2011. U.S. biodiesel production (derived primarily from vegetable oil), albeit much smaller, has also shown strong growth, rising from 0.5 million gallons in 1999 to a record 969 million gallons in 2012. Despite the rapid growth of the past decades, total agriculture-based biofuels consumption accounted for only about 8% of U.S. transportation fuel consumption (9.7% of gasoline and 1.5% of diesel) in 2012. Federal biofuels policies have had costs, including unintended market and environmental consequences and large federal outlays (estimated at $7.7 billion in 2011, but declining to $1.3 billion in 2012 with the expiration of the ethanol blender's tax credit). Despite the direct and indirect costs of federal biofuels policy and the relatively small role of biofuels as an energy source, the U.S. biofuels sector continues to push for federal involvement. But critics of federal policy intervention in the biofuels sector have also emerged. Current issues and policy developments related to the U.S. biofuels sector that are of interest to Congress include: Many federal biofuels policies require routine congressional monitoring and occasional reconsideration in the form of reauthorization or new appropriations; The 10% ethanol-to-gasoline blend ratio-known as the "blend wall"-poses a barrier to expansion of ethanol use. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued waivers to allow ethanol blending of up to 15% (per gallon of gasoline) for use in model year 2001 and newer light-duty motor vehicles. However, the limitation to newer vehicles, coupled with infrastructure issues, could limit rapid expansion of blending rates; The slow development of cellulosic biofuels has raised concerns about the industry's ability to meet large federal usage mandates, which in turn has raised the potential for future EPA waivers of mandated biofuel volumes and has contributed to a cycle of slow investment in and development of the sector. In 2012, the expiration of the blender tax credit, poor profit margins (due primarily to high corn prices), and the emerging blend wall limitation have contributed to a drop-off in ethanol production and have generated considerable uncertainty about the ethanol industry's future.

Record Midwest heat in June and July (2012) sparked the worst U.S. drought since 1956, causing damage to major field crops. This situation has contributed to record U.S. prices for corn and soybeans in both cash and futures markets in 2012, and has fanned the fears of food price inflation reminiscent of 2008. The heightened commodity price volatility of 2008 and the subsequent acceleration in U.S. food price inflation associated with commodity market shifts raised concerns and generated many questions about farm and food price movements by Members of Congress and their constituents. However, historical evidence suggests that retail prices for processed food products are driven more by consumer demand (strongly linked to general economic conditions), than by price changes in raw commodity markets, although this linkage varies with the degree of raw commodity content in the retail product. This report focuses instead on the nature and measurement of retail food price inflation and its relationship to consumers. During the 1991 to 2006 period, U.S. food prices were fairly stable-annual food price inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all food (excluding alcoholic beverages), averaged a relatively low 2.5%. However, several economic factors emerged in late 2005 that began to gradually push market prices higher for both raw agricultural commodities and energy costs, and ultimately retail food prices. U.S. food price inflation increased at a rate of 4% in 2007 and at 5.5% in 2008-the highest since 1990 and well above the general inflation rate of 3.8%. The situation of sharply rising prices came to a sudden halt in late 2008 when the financial crisis hit U.S. markets leading to a severe economic recession. Annual food price inflation dropped to 1.8% in 2009 and 0.8% in 2010, before rising to 3.7% in 2011 driven by improving U.S. and global economic conditions. USDA projects that annual food price inflation will range from 2.5% to 3.5% in 2012 and rise to 3%-4% in 2013. The All-Food CPI has two components-food-at-home and food-away-from-home. The food-at home CPI is most representative of retail food prices and is significantly more volatile than the food-away-from-home index. The food-at-home CPI is projected in a range of 3% to 4% for 2013, compared with a 2.5% to 3.5% annual inflation rate for food-away-from home prices. This difference is partially explained by the larger share of farm products in the final price of retail foods than in food-away-from home. Farm product prices are, in general, substantially more volatile than the other marketing and processing costs that enter into retail or ready-to-eat foods. Many wages and salaries, as well as federal programs (including several domestic food assistance programs), are linked to price inflation through escalation clauses in order to retain consumer purchasing power. For households where income and federal benefits do not keep up with price inflation, declines in purchasing power are real and immediate. However, even for households with escalation clauses, a time lag usually occurs between the time the price inflation is measured and the time when the wage or program benefit is adjusted upward to compensate. The 2008-2009 global economic crisis-which involved higher retail prices and unemployment, income loss, and lower effective household purchasing power-resulted in higher participation rates in the federal food and nutrition programs since then. As a result, USDA's food and nutrition assistance programs have seen a tremendous expansion in use-federal expenditures totaled $103.3 billion in FY2011 and marked the 11th consecutive year in which food and nutrition assistance expenditures exceeded the previous historical record. Since FY2000, expenditures for food and nutrition assistance have more than tripled.

For almost six decades, the United States has played a leading role in global efforts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and to enhance world food security through international food aid assistance-primarily through either the sale on concessional terms or the donation of U.S. agricultural commodities. Foreign food aid assistance accounts for about 4% of total U.S. foreign aid each year, with economic and military assistance accounting for most outlays. The objectives of foreign food aid include providing emergency and humanitarian assistance in response to natural or manmade disasters, and promoting agricultural development and food security.

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This edition examines and discusses the use of biofuels, biodiesel, ethanol, and agriculture-based renewal energy production.

All major US agricultural program crops - corn, barley, sorghum, oats, wheat, rice, and soybeans - have exhibited extreme price volatility since mid-2007, while rising to record or near-record levels in early 2008. This book examines the causes, consequences, and outlook for prices of the major US program crops.

Presents background regarding the vulnerability of US agricultural support programs to potential WTO dispute settlement challenges. This book reviews the general criteria for successfully challenging a farm subsidy program.