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The role of agribusinesses can be crucial in improving a country’s economic growth, diversification of revenue sources and contributing to its overall development goals. Previous research has focused on innovation in the first step of the agricultural value chain. Despite that, the off-farm segments may have equal weight in the performance of the entire chain; the food and beverage branch alone represents around 40-70% of the value-added cost. The aim of this paper is to analyze whether firm-level innovation improves agribusinesses’ economic performance. Our analysis contributes to the current academic debate providing evidence of the agribusiness sector within a hostile business environment, a recurrent issue in several developing countries. We use the World Bank Enterprise Survey (2010, 2016) of El Salvador and follow a sequential Crépon-Duguet-Mairesse (CDM) approach. Our results suggest that investment in innovation activities and the potential innovation outcomes are determined by both specific firm characteristics and the surrounding hostile environment. The agribusiness sector has not expanded its overall production frontier, and the expenditures on insecurity mitigation outweigh the economic gains from innovation outputs.

In the EU, the 2017/18 sugar marketing year (MY) was the first with no production quota and most of the price support gone. The Uruguay round restrictions on sugar exports were also not binding anymore, making the EU a net exporter. In MY2018/19 the EU turned back into a net importer as domestic sugar production fell. Developments on the demand side have been much less dramatic as global sugar consumption kept growing. These market and policy trends lead to relatively low international prices between 2018 and 2020 before trending upwards in 2021. These low prices were at least partially transmitted to European markets. In a net-export situation and without export restitutions, international export prices would be the anchor for intra-EU price formation. Under these circumstances, the still present interventionist side of the EU's sugar market policy could easily be viewed as irrelevant for price formation within the EU. However, in the more realistic scenario of the EU being a net-importer, price formation will continue to be strongly affected by the existing import restricting policies. There has been no change in the EU schedule of bound tariffs for sugar since the formation of the World Trade Organisation. Other external sugar market policies of the EU are unilateral market access to the common market (i.e., EPA, EBA), tariff rate quotas (e.g., the Balkan and CXL preferences) and preferences granted under bilateral agreements. This report assesses how effective the EU trade policies regarding sugar have been for EU sugar imports and sugar prices within the EU, followed by resulting policy recommendations. [...] A study commissioned and partially funded by CIUS - The Association of European Sugar Users (cius.org).

Large chocolate manufacturers have committed themselves to only using certified cocoa beans and some governments want to increase the share of certified cocoa products consumed in their countries. Thus, Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSSs) become quasi-mandatory for cocoa producers and grinders to ensure access to these markets. Yet, their trade effects are unclear. We study the effect of a VSS on raw and processed cocoa exports. We use a unique dataset that contains the UTZ Certified cocoa production quantity of cocoa-producing countries from 2010 to 2016. This allows us to estimate a gravity model of trade and analyse the effect of the share of UTZ Certified cocoa production quantity in a country on the trade value of raw cocoa beans, cocoa powder, cocoa paste and cocoa butter. Our results show that UTZ certification only enhances bilateral exports of cocoa beans and paste, while it reduces exports of cocoa butter and has mixed effects on cocoa powder exports.

GlobalG.A.P. compliance has often become a key requirement for farmers to access high-value global markets. Yet, the global spread of certification is highly uneven among countries. We assess the drivers and dynamics behind these unequal patterns, applying panel data regressions. Findings show that global agricultural trade networks remain relevant, but are no longer sufficient in explaining certification. Fostering a favourable business environment - via providing secure land tenure and a functioning judicial system - as well as investing in transportation and information infrastructure may facilitate farmers' participation in certification schemes. Stringency of existing public regulations is helpful for overcoming entry barriers.