098016 Food, Agricultural and Environmental Policy

Details
Department of Economics and Natural Resources (2003/2004)
Earliest Possible Year
Duration1 semester
 
Credits6 (ECTS)
Course LevelJoint BSc and MSc
 
Examinationevaluation of project report


Aid allowed

Description of Examination: pass/fail, internal examiner
 
Organisation of Teaching
 
Block Placement3-week course June
 
Teaching LanguageEnglish
 
Optional Prerequisites096711 Economics 1
095251 Micro Economics
095261 Macro Economics
095758 Development Economics 1
 
Restrictions30 KVL-students and approx. 10 external students
 
Course Objectives
Understanding of how policy measures affect economic growth, poverty, hunger, food security, and nutrition is very important. Similarly, understanding of how rural and agricultural development projects need good supporting policies for effectiveness is important. Inappropriate policies may cancel out the potential impact of otherwise effective projects and inappropriate projects may render good policies useless. The Course will provide guidelines for a combined design of policies and projects.
 
Course Contents
The goals of the Course are to strengthen:

1) the students' understanding of existing and alternative policy measures related to food security, agriculture, and natural resource management and how they affect the nutritional status and food security of various population groups as well as the agricultural sector and natural resources and 2) the ability of the students to assess the effects of alternative policy measures within the area of food, agriculture, and natural resource management. Developing country issues and policies will be emphasized. The Course will describe existing policy measures and analyze how they affect various population groups, with emphasis on low-income and food insecure groups. The interaction between policy measures in developing and industrialized countries as well as the impact of the latter on the former will be analyzed along with relevant international trade and institutional issues. The interaction between development projects and policy measures will be analyzed to assist in identifying the most appropriate combination of projects and policies. The Course will discuss and analyze a large number of policy measures in various countries and seek general lessons regarding the relationships between policies and effects while identifying ways of selecting the most effective measures in specific situations.

The content of the Course will include past trends, current status and future projections for food security, demand and supply, nutritional status, population, urbanization, and related variables; basic relationships between government policy and food security, nutrition, and health; gender aspects; diet trends and their causes; globalization, trade, and technology; natural resource management; markets, infrastructure, and institutions; consumer, producer, and government behavior; analytical methods; and communication of policy-related knowledge to decision-makers.
 
Teaching And Learning Methods
The Course will consist of three lectures, each of a 50-minute duration, every morning during 15 days, followed by three hours of discussion and training sessions each afternoon. The afternoon sessions will be linked directly to the lectures given in the morning and the students will be divided into a number of subgroups corresponding to the number of lecturers in the morning and organized in such a way that each subgroup spends one session of 50 minutes with each lecturer, thus providing for more intimate and effective small-group discussions. The lecturers will be members of the KVL, Wageningen, and Cornell University faculties, senior research staff members from IFPRI, and guest lecturers. The Course will be limited to 40 students of which it is expected that 30 will be students currently enrolled at KVL or Wageningen while 10 will be from developing countries, currently working on development projects or policies. It is expected that at least five of the students from KVL and Wageningen will be nationals of developing countries, thus resulting in approximately one-half developing country nationals and one-half nationals from Denmark and The Netherlands. Such diversity of background of the participants is believed to further enhance the value of the discussions and interactions
 
Course Litterature
Pinstrup-Andersen, Per, Seeds of Contention, 2001 IFPRI publications
Pinstrup-Andersen, Per and Rajul Pandya-Lorch, The Unfinished Agenda, 2001 IFPRI publications
Other references will be added

 
Course Coordinator
Per Pinstrup-Andersen, ppa@life.ku.dk, Institute of Food and Resource Economics/International Economics and Policy Division, Phone: 35336851
 
Study Board
Study Committee AHJ
 
Course Scope
lectures45
theoretical exercises45
preparation90

180