Effects of agricultural free trade on environmental quality - Exploring the linkages and research perspectives

The World Trade Organization (WTO) initiated the globalization of world trade, and increasing concerns for the quality of the environment have resulted in discussions about agricultural policy involving many different perspectives. There are several issues linking trade liberalization, agriculture and the environment, one implicitly assuming that the more efficient allocation of resources and high income are associated with the improvement of agro-environmental quality. Another view is that agricultural trade policies influence crop-production patterns, farming practices and input use. The net effect is that each approach cancels out some of the influence of the other. Two examples from Mexico and Bangladesh point out that agro-environmental responses to free trade are non-linear and that it is not easy to draw a simple causal relationship between free trade and the agro-environment. A basic challenge before the research community is to confront reductionist approaches, as traditional research into trade-agriculture-environment interactions reveals difficulty in dealing with the knowledge gaps. A transdisciplinary, systems approach provides one possibility for dealing with the needs of free trade in agriculture.