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INTERCONNECTING AGRI-FOOD TRADE INTELLIGENCE ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA & ASIA-PACIFIC
Starting date: August/2006. Conclusion: extended
ICONE and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation are working on the project entitled "Interconnecting Agri-Food Trade Intelligence across South America and Asia-Pacific". The objective is to foster the development of studies on agri-food sectors and policies of selected countries in Asia and Latin-America. The studies may be used to influence agricultural policy-making with a view towards the development of the sector.
The initial project involves preparing studies on the agricultural sectors of ten countries: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand in Asia; Argentina, Brazil and Chile in Latin America. These country papers will be written by selected experts on agricultural and agri-food from each country and together they make up the Asia Latin-America Agri-food Research Network (ALARN).
In August 2007, a seminar will be held in São Paulo to present the papers prepared by the members, as well as discuss the findings and implications for each country. A cross-paper will be written analyzing the main characteristics of the agricultural and agri-food sectors of the ten countries. This paper will highlight the differences between the countries and regions and identify the policies that brought problems to the sector and those that resulted in a more efficiently structured and productive sector. These findings may be used by specialists and the governments of the countries involved to learn from the experience of other developing countries. The exchange of information will be beneficial to all members, as well as to their countries experts, students and government officials working on agriculture. Considering that the members of the network are experts with certain degree of influence in national policy-making, the findings of the research may evolve into recommendations to be forwarded to their countries ministry of agriculture.
The First International Seminar of the ALARN took place in São Paulo on 29th of August. The Seminar was attended by a large audience and external debaters helped analyze the information presented. The presentations are available on our website.
Below you will find the country papers of all countries of the ALARN network. The executive summaries of the papers will be available on ICONEs website and a booklet will be printed soon, to be distributed to key interest groups. Further, a book is being prepared containing a concise version of the papers, which should be of interest to the academic community.
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