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Moderating one of these e-discussions is like hosting a party. No-one shows up at the appointed time, your anxiety levels rise as you start to wonder whether the invitations went astray etc, then the first people show up, and soon (I trust) the place is buzzing. Here are some initial thoughts based on the excellent initial salvoes from Peter Robbins, Kate Gooding, Vinay Chand and Andy Parnell. They don't cover all the issues raised, just some of the common concerns that have arisen. Overall, I would like to take up Vinay's challenge that we concentrate on identifying success stories and discussing the lessons they provide. NGOs (I should know, I was working for one up until the end of last year) tend to be weaker on this than on identifying problems and obstacles, while governments tend to stick to generalities through their rhetoric of 'not picking winners'. Commodities: This obviously struck a chord, and Peter's absolutely right that there has been a flurry of interest from UNCTAD, developing countries, NGOs etc over the last year or two. It rather reminds me of the wider development debate over the role of the state - the pendulum is swinging back from 'free market fundamentalism', resulting in new thinking which combines both the 'best of the old' in terms of e.g. industrial policy, and new ideas on governance, institutions, technology transfer etc. It appears that we are about to witness something similar on commodities. On supply management (SM), Peter urged us to revisit past experiences, and Kate quite rightly criticised my initial paper for talking only of the 'failure' of past efforts (apologies for that). Vinay was sceptical of SM efforts at national level, based on his experiences in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Can others provide successful national level SM case studies which provided farmers with better (rather than worse as Vinay suggests) prices? Peter, you say there are 'many ways of improving the effectiveness of past International Commodity Agreements'. Such as? What has been tried to address some of the main issues - e.g. free rider countries, the costs of escalating buffer stocks, producer members cheating by producing over quota, the difficulties for new entrants to be accepted into the club. Above all, how do you address the problem that you yourself identify - if it works, then prices will rise and people will produce more and we're back to boom and bust? Over to you, but I'd like you to focus on what has worked in practice, either internationally or nationally. What should be salvaged and built into any new approach to SM? Finally, you say that SM would provide a temporary income boost which developing countries can use to diversify out of commodities - what were the success stories you would identify from the last effort at SM - i.e. which countries were able to diversify based on the income boost provided by commodity agreements? Role of Private Sector: Kate and Andy focussed on the issue of competition (or lack of it) in global value chains and the need for some form of international competition policy. I would be interested if she could spell out how this could work e.g. in horticulture, where buyer standards and demands seem to turn producers into contract farmers who are effectively employees of the supermarket buyers, or coffee, where an oligopsony of companies operates and seems able to keep up consumer prices whatever happens to producer incomes. What are the issues that arise from the extension of Global Value Chains? I absolutely agree with Vinay that governments (UK included) often seem much happier to talk in general terms about the virtues of 'markets' than to work with the messy realities of real life 'companies'. He argues for more attention to building marketing skills in Developing Countries. I would be interested to hear from him why he thinks technical assistance to these kind of activities has fallen off since the 70s and 80s. Standards Given the rise, which Vinay identifies, of consumer-driven standards in developing country markets as well as export markets, problems of standards and marketing are only likely to increase for smaller producers. Do people have any success stories (other than the legendary Guatemalan mangetout/snow pea producers) of small producers successfully navigating rising quality and standards demands and benefiting from the export market? Vinay can find 'precious few' success stories on this. Can we help him here? Kate calls for an extension of social and environmental standards, but recognises the implicit dangers they bring of smallholder exclusion. She calls for a participatory approach to setting standards - any examples from developing countries? If I've left out anything crucial, by all means say it again (as Fidel Castro once said, 'repetitition is a revolutionary virtue'...). Otherwise, refill your glasses and get chatting Best Wishes Duncan Green Moderator Trade and Agriculture ________________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star Internet. The service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit: http://www.star.net.uk ________________________________________________________________________
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