Impact of market reforms in the low rainfall areas in West Asia and North Africa
1997
Chaheril, N. (ICARDA, Aleppo (Syria))
This paper summarizes results obtained from research activities conducted in the Mashreq/Maghreb Project (M and M). The specific objective is to look at the impact of market liberalization on barley and sheep production in low rainfall (or low potential) areas and the possible effect on incomes, resource management and technology adoption. The paper provides a discriptive analysis of structural adjustment programs in the region and presents results from multi-market and community model simulations for selected WANA countries. A comparison is made between Tunisia and Jordan on the basis of some price policy changes in the crop and livestock sectors. Results from multi-market models show that market liberalization has a substantial impact on incomes, production and consumption in the low rainfall areas. However, the impact seems to be less dramatic in Tunisia than in Jordan because of potential income generating alternatives to the traditional crop and livestock activities. The impact is paticularly important on imports and more so for livestock products than for wheat and barley. At the community level, simulations have been made on the impact of trade reforms such as changes in tariff structures for key crop and livestock commodities. Results show that market liberalization generates from important trade-offs between income growth and income distribution. When substantial income increases are obtained at the community level, pice policy changes tend to also generate a less equitable revenue distribution between farm types. It is particularly important, in this context, to establish some direct income transfers to farmers with limited potential to benefit from the new liberalized environment.
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