Competing Paradigms in the OECD and Their Impact on the WTO Agricultural Talks

Evidence exists of an emerging new paradigm in U.S. agriculture that emphasizes the ability of the sector to compete both with other sectors in the domestic economy and with overseas competitors. But a rival new paradigm has been gaining significance in Europe that stresses the public-good nature of agriculture and the inability of the sector to earn satisfactory incomes just by providing agricultural commodities. A third paradigm points to the nature of agriculture as increasingly one stage in an integrated supply chain that crosses borders in a global food system. The current WTO talks on agriculture will provide an opportunity for these paradigms to compete for the setting of international trade rules.