Food supply security within the framework of the third food regime: An analysis on the Cairns group countries

Agricultural food production processes have undergone three significant changes globally, influenced by food regimes. In the first food regime, which was shaped under the leadership of countries and groups with global economic power, the dominant power was the United Kingdom. In the second food regime, the dominant power became the United States. In the third food regime, which still remains valid today, power has shifted to international organizations and multinational corporations. The aim of this regime is to encourage international trade and to develop free trade by removing protectionism in agriculture. The World Trade Organization (WTO), whose primary objective is the liberalization of world trade, holds an important place in the third food regime. Within the framework of the WTO's advanced agricultural negotiations, efforts have been made to gradually eliminate tariffs and barriers in agricultural trade. The policies implemented by the WTO for the liberalization of agricultural trade have yielded results favorable to developed countries, while causing rural populations in developing countries to fall into poverty. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the effects of agricultural trade liberalization on food supply security. The issue of food supply security was addressed through the Cairns Group countries, a coalition of agricultural countries advocating market-oriented reforms in the international agricultural trade system. The Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was used in the analysis part of the study with the data of the period 1995- 2022, when the Third Food Regime was effective. In the model, the effects of economic growth, carbon dioxide emissions, pesticide and fertilizer use, globalization index and agricultural total factor productivity variables on the agricultural production index were investigated. According to the findings obtained as a result of the analysis, while agricultural trade liberalization has a positive effect on the food supply security of these countries in the long term, it has a negative effect in the short term. In addition, the increase in fertilizer use efficiency also has a positive effect on food supply security. Keywords: Food Regime, WTO Agricultural Negotiations, Cairns Group, Panel ARDL