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By John G. Dillard, as published on his AgWeb.com Blog – Ag in the Courtroom

With 2013 nearly in the books and the holiday season nearly behind us, its time to prepare for the challenges that face us in the coming year. While I am no expert on forecasting long-range weather patterns, commodity market fluctuations, or predicting the future of the Kardashian family, I do feel adequately qualified to indulge in a few predictions regarding what will be hot topics in the agricultural policy realm in the coming year. Accordingly, I, like most writers with access to an audience, have prepared a top 10 list of things to watch in agriculture in 2014.

1.      The 2012 2013 2014 Farm Bill

Farm Bills are getting harder and harder to come by these days. The 2012 effort to pass a Farm Bill failed. Congress punted by granting a one-year extension. The…

Chapter four of One Billion Hungry describes the Uruguay and, later, Doha rounds of international trade negotiations. At the time of publishing little headway had been made in reducing tariffs, trade barriers and protectionist measures in the agricultural sector (tariffs for agricultural products are an average 62% compared to 4% for industrial goods) and since the Doha round began in 2001, there has been a stubborn stalemate between developed and developing countries. Reducing the number of proposals to agree in 2011, including measures on intellectual property and trade in services, (and spurring the moniker “Doha Lite”), the World Trade Organisation were seeking agreement between the 159 member countries at a recent meeting in Bali, the success of which looked likely to determine the continuance of Doha altogether, and the value of the WTO itself as this would be the first ever deal agreed under the WTO since its inception…