Competitiveness of Global Agriculture

The motivation behind writing such a book are numerous. First, as researchers interested in both food security and agricultural competitiveness issues, we have always found a gap in the scientific literature in treating the two notions together. Second, as lecturers of various agricultural policy and food security related courses, we have many times been faced with questions related to the competitive positions of different countries and the factors lying behind these positions. Third, as economic advisors, we have been faced with the need to provide clear policy recommendations and lessons on how increase competitiveness and associated food security many times. Such a need is mainly coming from developing country policy and decision makers.

We think the book is unique in many ways. First, it provides a consistent analysis of global agricultural trade patterns over 25 years. Second, it analyzes and synthetizes the definitions, concepts and measurement methods of competitiveness, covering a major gap in the current literature. Third, it establishes a link between the analysis of global agricultural competitiveness and food security, which is also an understudied area. Finally, the book provides policy lessons to increase a country’s agricultural competitiveness and food security by identifying its determinants.