Comments

Wesley, thank you for the blog and supporting paper. You’ve comprehensively captured both the challenges and opportunities for agriculture in the Pacific and its fundamental role in the livelihoods of people throughout the region. Developing export pathways for agricultural (including forestry and fisheries) products and addressing the associated quarantine requirements has indeed been a long standing challenge and source of frustration for the region's public and private sector. In recognition of this, the Australian Government began supporting the Pacific Horticultural and Agricultural Market Access (PHAMA) program in 2011 to provide technical support and build the capacity of countries in the Pacific region to gain and maintain market access of high value primary products. The program specifically works with both the public and private sectors in target countries to address the regulatory aspects of biosecurity, quarantine and research and development related to market access for high priority fresh and processed primary products. Countries currently targeted within the program are Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. The program also provides specific resources to the Australian Department of Agriculture to increase their capacity to progress requests from the Pacific region for new or improved market access and to the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) to provide support for biosecurity related market access issues at the regional level. The point raised on the need for greater cooperation between the public and private sector to prioritise market access issues is an important one and real progress is starting to be made. A key component of the PHAMA program has been the establishment of Market Access Working Groups in each of the target countries to provide a practical working partnership between government and the private sector to manage the resolution of market access issues that are to be addressed through the program. These working groups are at different stages of evolution and consideration is now being made on the options for continuation of their functions and mechanism when the current phase of the PHAMA program ends in June 2017. It is also positive to note that the case study you provided on the request by the Government of Fiji for access for fresh ginger into Australia has been progressing in recent months following technical negotiations between the biosecurity authorities of Fiji and Australia. An issue perhaps not fully explored in your paper is the need to increase awareness of the existing market opportunities for agricultural products from the Pacific region and how they can be better utilised. For example, improving awareness of what products can be exported already or with some form of processing; increasing the compliance of products with biosecurity or quality standards; or improving the quality or market niche of products. The work being supported by PHAMA is strongly complemented by the broader efforts being made by the public and private sector in partner countries, through other donor programs and the increasing focus of the Australian Department of Agriculture and New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industry on the region. A real reminder that efforts at one part of the export supply chain can only lead to success if the steps before and after also being addressed in a coordinated way. BRONWYN WISEMAN is Deputy Team Leader on the PHAMA program, which is managed by URS and Kalang on behalf of the Australian government.

Thanks Dev -- I think you do a nice job of summarising the PD argument. My problem is that they (or at least some of them) make it seem like development is all discourse and of no intrinsic merit. I think this is a deeply mistaken position. I also think they also claim far too much power for the developers of this world: villagers in Sumbawa want development, I think, not because they've been duped into it by some Western discourse, but because it actually brings benefits. Thanks again for your comment.

Thanks again Kien -- I agree (for the reasons you raise) that subjective well-being is a somewhat problematic tool for assessing welfare (then again, so are the alternatives). On paternalism, that's a somewhat different issue from measuring subjective welfare, and also from the state providing merit or public goods. Here the issue is people making mistakes, which then lead to worse welfare outcomes for them (either objective or subjective). Now the question is should the state intervene, either to prevent or to nudge people away from the mistakes they would otherwise make. I agree - this is an interesting area.

I think you miss one key point made by much of the post-development thinkers, that 'development' is a powerful discourse; a powerful way or seeing and organising the world, to define developed and undeveloped - a completely Western worldview. Post-development thinkers tend to make a distinction between development as a collection of positive programs, and development as a ideology, a discourse. I found it is primarily the latter they were concerned with. But then again, it's been a while since I've read the material.

Philippa's blog echoes the concerns raised in the context of the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement. Mike Finger and Philip Schuler in a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-2215" rel="nofollow">1999 paper</a> estimated the large costs that selected developing countries had it incur in implementing 'unprecedented obligations' to put in place institutional structures and laws to regulate technical, sanitary and phytosanitary standards and intellectual property law. They pointed out that imposing these obligations had little bearing on the problems those countries were dealing with,and took no account of capacity. On TRIPS, Finger and Schuler said: 'As to diagnosis, its focus is not on encouraging innovation or protecting endogenous technology in developing countries, it is on industrial country enterprises' collecting for intellectual property on which least developed countries now recognize no obligation to pay. And after the Uruguay Round, successive developing and least developed countries have had to take on similar obligations as a condition of joining the WTO, reinforced by requirements of bilateral and regional trade agreements. What Philippa makes clear is that this has been at best only peripherally about delivering benefits to those countries.

"Collective action to improve social outcomes" is a better way of putting this. Also have no difficulty with the idea that while people adapt, their subjective assessment of their own well-being is also influenced by objective considerations. So the adaptation is partial. But I think subjective well-being remains a misleading guide to well-being even if people's subjective well-being are influenced by objective considerations. This might imply that some paternalism is unavoidable, which I realise is not a comfortable concept.

Thanks Kien, If by 'social planning' you mean some sort of collective action to improve on the outcomes we would see from market based mechanisms alone, I definitely agree with you. On the adaptability and subjective utility. As I understand it set point theory is contested, although it's not my area of expertise so I'm open to correction. I would say though that the chart in my post above is, I think, evidence against the 'people adapt' hypothesis. If people adapted, on average, to most circumstances we wouldn't see any correlation between GDP and subjective utility, all countries would score more or less the same. Thanks again for your comment. Terence

Perhaps another way of putting this is that people adapt and so subjective utility is a misleading guide to well-being. If objective measures of well-being (eg life expectancy, infant mortality, unemployment) are accepted, some degree of social planning seems unavoidable.

It is good to inform young doctors that there are various opportunities waiting for them in other countries. They can help poor people and enhance their skills as well.

Jo, In case Philippa doesn't see this, "noodle bowls" are the mess of bilateral rules and regulations which result from a large number of regional or bilateral trade agreements. One of the traditional criticisms of such agreements (and an argument in favour of WTO and multilateralism) is that they create this expensive and distortionary complex set of deals. I read Philippa as saying that there are more serious things to worry about when it comes to free-trade agreements than this. And note her criticisms re the treatment of IP apply to bilateral and multilateral deals alike,

I agree with you Patrick. PNG should not be put down by themselves or by other people. To be clear we are still are developing country. Therefore no man has no right to degrade PNG!!!

Thanks for this Wesley, and also for your paper which I enjoyed reading very much - it's great to be able to expand this conversation. I agree entirely with all that you have said about export potential and blockages arising from Australian quarantine and phyto-sanitary issues. These are less of an impediment (by a very significant margin) when it comes to exporting agri-prducts (e.g. root crops) to New Zealand from the Pacific. Your paper references the work of PT&I in this space and they have certainly done some sterling work with producers, including assistance with labelling, barcodes, etc. This is reflective of the need to work with the entirety of supply chains. I think there are a couple of points to add in relation to supplying domestic markets (see also the forthcoming 'Pacific Conversation' with Astrid Boulekone). In countries such as Vanuatu there is more to be done about linking primary producers with the tourism sector. (I won't bore you again with the 'why tourism is like mining' argument). In all Melanesian countries, urban populations are growing and for reasons of economy and public health (nutrition) there are increasingly strong arguments for ensuring that foodstuffs can move from rural to urban locations and be affordable to people who are not able to produce for themselves because they do not have access to a garden or they do not have time to grow food because they are participating in the wage economy (or a combination of the two). To return to the current 'steer' for the Australian aid program, there have been several mentions of leveraging private sector (and in particular Australian private sector) actors as development partners. Carnival (owner and operator of P&O cruise ships) has been cited as an exemplary 'development partner' (by people other than me). I hope we can see this partnership being 'leveraged' so that Carnival becomes an active (and indeed proactive) purchaser of niche products such as those you have identified here. Their track record in this space is extremely disappointing so there is plenty of opportunity to improve and impress.