TY - JOUR
T1 - Scale, technique and composition effects in the Mexican agricultural sector
T2 - The influence of NAFTA and the institutional environment
AU - Vilas-Ghiso, Silvina J.
AU - Liverman, Diana M.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This paper has benefited from careful and thoughtful comments on earlier drafts by Zhong Xiang Zhang, an anonymous referee and the advisory group of the Third North American Symposium on Assessing the Environmental Effects of Trade, Montreal, 30 November—1 December 2005. We would also like to thank Cameron Hepburn and Richard Pearson for their input into early stages of this project and the financial support of the CEC for some of the analysis. That
PY - 2007/6
Y1 - 2007/6
N2 - More than a decade after NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) entered into force, the environmental effects of agricultural trade liberalization in Mexico are still controversial, emerging, and not fully understood. This paper contributes to the literature that aims to explore trends in input use in the agricultural sector in Mexico during the post-NAFTA period among both commercial/industrial and traditional/rainfed farmers, and examines the influence of the national and multilateral institutional framework on these outcomes. We decompose the post-NAFTA agricultural production data into scale, technique and composition effects to estimate the impact that trade liberalization has had on the use of fertilizer and land use, two key agricultural inputs for which reliable aggregate data is available. We conclude that among commercial farmers patterns of crop type specialization and significant technological improvements have led to some declines in fertilizer use but they have been offset by growth in fertilizer use associated with growing agricultural output. Among traditional farmers increased output and specialization in land-intensive grain crops are contributing to an increase in land under cultivation and technological improvements show the potential, but not yet not the strength, to counteract these effects. We analyse the environmental institutional framework and rural development plans, observing that institutional weaknesses have, in several instances, reduced the environmental benefit of technique and composition effects. We conclude with recommendations about how the Mexican agricultural sector might reap the environmental benefits of international agricultural trade.
AB - More than a decade after NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) entered into force, the environmental effects of agricultural trade liberalization in Mexico are still controversial, emerging, and not fully understood. This paper contributes to the literature that aims to explore trends in input use in the agricultural sector in Mexico during the post-NAFTA period among both commercial/industrial and traditional/rainfed farmers, and examines the influence of the national and multilateral institutional framework on these outcomes. We decompose the post-NAFTA agricultural production data into scale, technique and composition effects to estimate the impact that trade liberalization has had on the use of fertilizer and land use, two key agricultural inputs for which reliable aggregate data is available. We conclude that among commercial farmers patterns of crop type specialization and significant technological improvements have led to some declines in fertilizer use but they have been offset by growth in fertilizer use associated with growing agricultural output. Among traditional farmers increased output and specialization in land-intensive grain crops are contributing to an increase in land under cultivation and technological improvements show the potential, but not yet not the strength, to counteract these effects. We analyse the environmental institutional framework and rural development plans, observing that institutional weaknesses have, in several instances, reduced the environmental benefit of technique and composition effects. We conclude with recommendations about how the Mexican agricultural sector might reap the environmental benefits of international agricultural trade.
KW - Agriculture
KW - Environment
KW - Mexico
KW - NAFTA
KW - Scale, technique and composition effects
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34249050494&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=34249050494&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10784-007-9042-6
DO - 10.1007/s10784-007-9042-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34249050494
VL - 7
SP - 137
EP - 169
JO - International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics
JF - International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics
SN - 1567-9764
IS - 2
ER -