Agricultural protectionism, its measurement and turkey

This study reviews conceptual framework of agricultural protectionism, relevant measurement issues, and changes in agricultural protectionism with time in selected countries based on the composition of supports. When measuring the levels of agricultural protection, OECD method, the most widespread one, was employed, and related criticisms were discussed. In order to determine levels of protection, 11 countries, which are thought to have a significant role in the world agricultural markets and/or in terms of protectionism, were selected. These countries were grouped as low, medium and high protection countries, based on their Nominal Assistance Coefficients. Further, differing applications and specific conditions of those countries were discussed. Producer Support Estimate Percentages, Nominal Assistance Coefficient and Nominal Protection Coefficient were used to analyze changes in the protection level of the countries.Nominal Assistance Coefficients are found to be as follows: 1,04-1,11 in low protection countries (Australia, Brazil, China), 1,16-1,43 in medium protection countries (United States of America, European Union, Canada, Russia, Turkey) and 2,12-2,76 in high protection countries (South Korea, Switzerland, Japan). Although share of decoupled payments in support compositions increases, share of market price supports causing price distortions is still high. Furthermore, it was also observed that importance of environmental issues is increasing in almost all countries. Based on nominal protection coefficient, it can be said that countries are protecting staple crops more. In this case, concerns of the countries on being self sufficient at least for these crops and decreasing their dependency on world markets are affecting the decisions of those countries. Hence, it can be concluded that agriculture will remain as the most controversial issue in free trade negotiations.