Canadian agricultural trade has experienced several volatile periods over the past 15 years. The Great Recession (2007–2009), the 2015–2016 global trade slowdown, unilateral policy actions by the United States against key trade allies and the multilateral system more generally, and the impacts of the Covid‐19 pandemic are among the most significant events during this period. Given the close integration

Global aquaculture markets have experienced a great deal of recent success. However, growers are still highly susceptible to risks caused by seasonality, interannual variability in earnings, and environmental factors. As a result, we see growers turning to alternative sources of income, and participating in off‐farm labor. We utilize a series of zero‐inflated count models to examine the relationship

During the Trump administration, there has been an unprecedented increase in the level of domestic support provided to US agricultural producers. Direct farm supports, including price and income support payments, federal crop insurance, and supplemental assistance to compensate losses due to the trade war with China and the pandemic, have accounted for more than one‐third of net farm income. Those

A well‐functioning trade relationship between Canada and the United States is crucial to the economic vitality of the Canadian agri‐food industry. However, agri‐food trade is more susceptible than other sectors to political interventions. The Trump presidency has strained Canada–US relations and his trade policy actions have significantly increased trade restrictions and trade policy uncertainty and

The 4 years of the Trump administration was marked by a number of events and policies that affected the Canadian agrifood sector. Changes to preferential trade agreements, the collapse of the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement framework, increased domestic support for US farmers, and diplomatic tensions between the United States and China all shaped international trade flows and created

Contract farming can be an effective measure to deal with agricultural production risks. This study provides a two‐stage stochastic programming model to analyze farmers’ cooperation in the context of contract farming under uncertainty. It provides a fair cost allocation policy for a coalition of farmers using a stochastic linear duality approach. A fair cost allocation implies that no subset of farmers

The Canadian agricultural economics profession, like much of society, is faced with the important challenge of how to effectively achieve aspirational goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). I argue that the Canadian agricultural economics society (CAES) will benefit from integrating EDI into our core mission and key activities. I focus on a select set of issues that I believe will further

Food waste has drawn increasing public attention, and the high levels of estimated waste are largely considered to be a failure of our current food system. Recently, economists have begun to weigh in, showing food waste can emerge as the result of a complex equilibrium affected by consumers’ preferences for convenience; expectations about future food prices and availability; food safety concerns; producers’

The Canadian Arctic is a unique food producing region. Much of the food produced in the Canadian Arctic has a strong tie with Indigenous cultures and communities, is produced or harvested in a pristine environment, and features species not commonly consumed in other parts of Canada. Building upon previous work and using data from a survey of Canadian consumers featuring a discrete choice experiment

This study examines consumer preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for organic wheat products exhibiting single labels, as well as multiple labels, including organic. The additional labels considered are related to the organic label (non‐genetically modified organism [non‐GMO]) or perceived as health‐promoting (gluten‐free, low‐carb, sugar‐free). Study data were collected using a consumer survey

This study examines preferences for local foods by two distinct consumer groups: local residents and tourists. In an incentive‐compatible framed field experiment, a series of dichotomous‐choice tasks involving oyster purchases were completed by 758 individuals: 341 local residents recruited at a Division of Motor Vehicles office and 417 tourists recruited at a beach ferry terminal. The experimental

Obtaining a Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR) certificate provides horticultural institutions the exclusive right to produce and reproduce new varieties, which directly motivate new plant variety innovations. This study investigates how the grant and surrender lag of PBR certificates is influenced by the crop type and applicant characteristics using the Canadian Food Inspection Agency horticultural crop

This paper assesses the distributional consequences of technical changes that improve the efficiency of land and of other inputs in a multifactor crop‐production system. We introduced an equilibrium displacement model (EDM) by using the specification of a factor‐augmenting approach. Given the uncertainty about the EDM parameters, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to produce a distribution of possible

In March 2019, China revoked the canola export licenses of two major Canadian exporters. We estimate the impact of these restrictions on Canadian canola prices. Using a vector error correction model to generate counterfactual prices, we estimate that between March 2019 and February 2020 canola prices were 3.6% lower than would have been expected in the absence of the import restrictions. We discuss

In the wake of the substantial increases in farmland values that have occurred in Ontario since 2008, concerns have been expressed regarding the potential influence of nonfarmer buyers, such as investment companies and foreign buyers, on prices paid for farmland. To examine whether these concerns may be warranted, this paper estimates the impact of nonfarmer buyers on sale prices for farmland in Ontario

With the deep recession now forecast for the world economy, trade can be expected to fall even more steeply. Agricultural trade will be less significantly affected, being insulated by its relatively low income elasticities of demand. However, a drop in the range of 12%–20% in real trade value should be expected. Canada can be expected to share in this, but, within agricultural exports, cereals will

Canada and the United States have strong economic ties and form part of an integrated North American pork industry. Canada's pork industry is export‐oriented, and the United States represents a key market for both live pigs and pork. Pork value chain stakeholders include input suppliers, pig producers, transportation companies, slaughter plants, wholesalers, and retailers. There are three overriding

This paper examines managerial corruption in cooperatives (co‐ops) and investor‐owned firms (IOFs), including its impact on prices and farmer welfare. Even when co‐op managers have greater incentives to engage in corruption because of the co‐op's larger production, the resulting corruption is not sufficient to offset the competitive effect that co‐ops exert vis‐à‐vis IOFs. This conclusion holds regardless

The COVID‐19 pandemic has prompted Canada and several other countries to impose an economic shutdown to prevent a deadly public health crisis from becoming much deadlier. In the agriculture and food sector, several hundred thousand restaurant workers have lost their jobs. The rise in unemployment, the closing of restaurants and schools, and social distancing have triggered demand reductions for certain

Canada's cattle/beef sector has already weathered a shock after a 2003 case of BSE resulted in closed borders and industry restructuring. Now, the sector has to adjust to similar shocks due to COVID‐19. This paper examines the supply chain from the consumer up to the cow–calf producer by considering consumer reactions, labor market constraints, and supply response. A quarterly market model of North

While downstream distribution and demand is likely to be hampered by the labor and income effects of COVID‐19, Canada is expected to produce over 88 million tons of grains and oilseeds in 2020. Canadians have valid concerns about delays related to their changing needs as millions move their purchases from food services to retail groceries, but they should not worry about our overall supply of calories

The COVID‐19 pandemic has put unprecedented strain on food supply chains. Given the ever‐increasing degree of globalization, those supply chains very often stretch across international borders. In the short run, countries have largely been working to keep those supply chains intact and operating efficiently so that panic buying is cooled and shifts in consumption habits arising from personal isolation

In 2017, the federal government initiated national consultations for two new crop royalty systems that could be used to support additional crop breeding. In this study, we examine wheat growers’ attitudes towards breeding research and assess their inclination to contribute more to wheat variety development through checkoffs or enhanced royalties. We report a random effect probit estimation for a survey

This study investigates the impact of the land rental market on labor productivity in rural China. Particular attention is given to farm and nonfarm labor productivity. Using 2012 household‐level data and a multinomial endogenous switching treatment regression technique, we find that rural households renting in farmland increased labor productivity in the farm sector by about 55%, whereas labor productivity

Canadian fruit and vegetable markets were significantly impacted by the spread of the novel coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2 (and COVID‐19 disease), beginning in March 2020. Due to the closure of restaurants, bars, and schools, produce growers and distributors were forced to shift supplies almost entirely from the foodservice to the retail channel. Shippers reported labor and logistical constraints in making

Evidence from the past 50 years suggests that changes in Canadian farmland values are influenced by farming returns, real interest rates, and exchange rates. Residential and commercial development also affects the value of farmland close to major urban centers. The COVID‐19 economic shutdown is expected to reduce crop and livestock returns, which will put downward pressure on farmland values. The magnitude

The unexpected introduction and spread of COVID‐19 has presented significant challenges for every aspect of Canadian society. Although the food and agricultural sector is positioned better than most, there are many risks that will need to be managed in the coming months. The suite of Federal‐Provincial‐Territorial Business Risk Management (BRM) programs delivered under the Canadian Agricultural Policy

In this paper, I explore the potential effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on Canadian food processors. First, COVID‐19 may have an impact on food processing economic activities because of supply and demand shocks. Second, the impact of COVID‐19 on food processing may depend on the type of products and the size of the processors. The effects of measures taken by the government to flatten the epidemiological

In this paper I explore several issues related to how the COVID‐19 pandemic might impact consumer demand for food. These impacts relate to the structure of preferences in the context of a pandemic, income and time constraints, and price effects. Discussion includes accounting for differential impacts of COVID‐19 on demand for food across sociodemographic characteristics, and several high‐level issues

COVID‐19 has imposed a series of unique challenges on the food retail and food service sectors in Canada. Almost overnight, the roughly 30% of the food dollar that Canadians have been spending on food away from home has shifted to retail.

The dumping of milk, the offering of hospitality size goods in grocery stores, and the closure of processing facilities are examples of the disruptions caused by the pandemic to the dairy, poultry, and egg sectors. These supply management sectors, however, are more resilient to the impacts of COVID‐19 than other sectors as producers are generally more financially stable, losses are pooled, and production/marketing

In this short paper, I assess how COVID‐19‐related disruptions in transportation services, as well as new demands for transportation services, could impact Canadian agricultural supply chains. The brief analysis reveals that agricultural access to bulk ocean freight, rail movement, and trucking has generally improved in the pandemic, bolstered by the reduced demand for these transportation services

This paper provides an early assessment of the implications of the COVID‐19 pandemic for food supply chains and supply chain resilience. The effects of demand‐side shocks on food supply chains are discussed, including consumer panic buying behaviors with respect to key items, and the sudden change in consumption patterns away from the food service sector to meals prepared and consumed at home. Potential

This article assesses the resilience of the North American food system in the context of the coronavirus pandemic in the immediate, medium, and long run. Focus is on the United States. The immediate consequence is substantial disruption of agricultural markets and falling prices, but systemic breakdown of the system is unlikely. Existing farm programs and emergency legislation will support U.S. farmers

The COVID‐19 pandemic11 Financial support to cover both page charges and technical editing was provided by the following: (i) Canadian Agricultural Economics Society; (ii) Food and Resource Economics Group, The University of British Columbia; (iii) Masters of Food and Resource Economics (MFRE) Program, The University of British Columbia; (iv) Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University

The effect of COVID‐19 on Canadian food security is examined from two different perspectives. COVID‐19 creates a unique “income shock” that is expected to increase the prevalence of household food insecurity. This food insecurity can be measured by utilizing the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). More fundamentally, COVID‐19 heightens household concern about the capacity of the Canadian food

This paper uses the information implicit in commodity futures and options prices to infer market beliefs about the impact of early‐stages COVID‐19 on commodity market fundamentals. The particular commodity examined is soft red winter (SRW) wheat, and the timeframe is early February to late March 2020. The analysis highlights various adjustments in the cash and futures price of SRW wheat in light of

Agricultural applications of nanotechnology are at a relatively early stage and little is known about consumer responses to the technology. Canadian consumer responses to food nanotechnology are examined through the lens of the Food Value Scale. Data from a survey of Canadian consumers are used to evaluate the relative importance of eleven food values to food purchase decisions. We find that taste

In this paper, I explore several issues related to how the COVID‐19 pandemic might impact consumer demand for food. These impacts relate to the structure of preferences in the context of a pandemic, income and time constraints, and price effects. Discussion includes accounting for differential impacts of COVID‐19 on demand for food across sociodemographic characteristics, and several high‐level issues

Chronic illness is a global epidemic and places significant economic and social burdens on societies. Research has shown that a healthy diet can be used to mitigate or significantly reduce the risk of many chronic illnesses. Health authorities around the world have begun regulating health claims on foods to encourage the consumption of healthy foods. However, the “ex post” efficacy of health claims

In 2016, second‐generation genetically modified (GM) potatoes were approved for production and sale in Canada. In this study, we analyze how consumer acceptance of GM potatoes may be affected by various factors, including the trait introduced (i.e., the product benefits), the type of breeding technology used, and the developer of the potato using any technology. We conduct an online survey and use

In this study, Canadian household meat consumption behavior in exotic (deer and elk meat) and traditional meats (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, bison, and seafood) is examined. This research introduces some differences in public response to transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) risks across consumer segments from different sources of meat supply, including hunted meat. The analysis uses a combination

Hypothetical bias is tested based on inter‐ and intra‐respondent comparisons of choice behavior, applying a hypothetical and real choice experiment. The inter‐respondent comparison commonly applied in the environmental and agricultural economics literature consists of a control group of buyers who are asked to hypothetically choose between conventional and organic beans and an experimental group of

The importance of customer ratings or reviews in online shopping has been recognized in the previous literature; however, few have studied how online customer rating scores affect consumers’ fresh produce purchases and its importance relative to other fresh produce attributes. The quality of fresh produce demonstrates high uncertainty and variation; therefore, the impact of user‐generated content such

Quebec's hog industry is supported by a revenue insurance program that guarantees a minimum price, but it also faces strict environmental constraints. Under price volatility, risk‐averse farms may contract their output enough to produce under increasing returns. We show that the subsidy and downside risk reduction effects of the revenue insurance program tend to stimulate output and increase the likelihood

The Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial governments recently enacted a new 5‐year agricultural policy framework, the Canadian Agricultural Partnership. While the framework contained few changes to existing policies, the governments also committed to a full review of Canadian business risk management (BRM) programs. In this article, I provide an overview of the existing suite of BRM programs

In this note, we propose a local maximum likelihood estimator for spatially‐dependent distributions. Our estimator adopts the Poisson regression approach for density ratio models and incorporates spatial smoothing via local regression. We also present a method of smoothing parameter selection. We illustrate this easy‐to‐implement estimator with an application to the estimation of corn yield distributions

Mexico and Canada successfully challenged the U.S. mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) requirements for beef and pork as inconsistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, which ultimately led to arbitration over the level of trade lost due to the COOL measure. During this phase of the dispute, Mexico, Canada, and the United States provided the Arbitration Panel with estimates of the trade

We explain the interplay of law and economics in the successful WTO challenge by Canada of U.S. mandatory country‐of‐origin labeling (COOL) measures for beef and pork, which hinged on origin of livestock used in U.S. meat production. Canada mounted a successful legal and economic strategy to convince WTO adjudicating bodies that the United States had violated specific WTO provisions. Canada's economic

In 2016, the United States launched a formal dispute with the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning China's wheat, corn, and rice tariff‐rate quota (TRQs) administration. A formal panel was requested in August 2017, with several major grain exporters, including Canada, joining as third‐party members. This study employs two unique micro‐level datasets to investigate the role of state‐owned and non‐state‐owned

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was referred to by U.S. President Trump as one of the worst trade deals ever made. Given this billing, one might have expected the result of its renegotiation to be a major change to the trading relationship between the United States and Canada. The new United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA), however, retains a great deal of its predecessor. This

Organic farming is a way to address environmental issues. In Kenya, organic production for domestic markets based on local certification represents a solution to both economic and environmental issues. We propose to address this latter issue. Indeed, no quantitative studies have been dedicated to these systems’ impacts on the environment. However, their theoretical benefits can be weakened, first by

Crop insurance may affect harvested acreage and yield by influencing producers’ behavior such as land allocation and input use. Although specialty crops are a major source of farm income, especially on the U.S. west coast, they have not received as much attention as field crops in previous empirical studies. This paper assesses the effect of moral hazard and adverse selection associated with the federal

In response to disease outbreak alerts in exporting countries, importing countries usually impose trade bans that vary in terms of product coverage and in terms of duration. We rely on a unique balanced panel dataset that covers four‐digit disaggregated beef products over the 1996–2013 period, to estimate the effect of a hypothetical removal of animal diseases outbreaks on trade flows. More specifically

Using data generated from surveys conducted on First Nations throughout Canada, we use regression analysis to examine factors influencing food insecurity. To our knowledge, this is the first time a regression‐based analysis has been conducted to examine food insecurity on First Nations in Canada. As expected, income is inversely related to the likelihood that one reports their household as experiencing

A trade restrictiveness index (TRI) aggregates an entire protection structure into a single uniform measure that is consistent with trade theory and reflects the extent of policy interventions on trade or welfare. Although there are several variants of a TRI, all approaches aggregate protective measures using weights that depend on import demand and export supply elasticities; some studies ignore cross‐price

We estimate the impact of the 2012 removal of the Canadian Wheat Board's (CWB) single‐desk on the spatial pattern of durum wheat acres in Western Canada. We analyze changes in durum seeded acres with a panel regression and Census Agricultural Region data from 2004 to 2016. Our results indicate that removal of the CWB single‐desk had a significant impact on total durum production in Western Canada.

To preserve farmland in industrialized countries, public initiatives or initiatives from nongovernmental organizations increasingly rely on Long‐term and Full Rights Acquisitions of land (LFRAs). The objective of this article is to help assess whether those actions provide profitable access to land use for lessee farms. We compare the economic implications for farms of this mode of access to land use

Labor‐saving and income‐increasing technologies may affect women farmers differently from men. However, very few studies explicitly account for women's preferences for new technologies. We carried out a discrete choice experiment with 337 female and 329 male farmers in Maharashtra, India, to measure their willingness to pay (WTP) for direct‐seeded rice (DSR) with drum seeder and to understand the gender

The Fellow's address begins by noting several recent consumer food trends and the changing way in which we perceive value‐added. I then focus on the topic of heterogeneity in consumer behavior, reviewing contributions from the literature that enhance our ability as economists to model and measure heterogeneity. Supply chain responses to consumer heterogeneity are examined, including a discussion of