Publications > Cahiers (English)> N° 55-56, 2nd and 3rd terms 2000

• Décision séquentielle et Principe de Précaution, N. TREICH texte au format PDF
  [Sequential decision-making and Precautionary Principle]
• Dynamique et incertitude dans la gestion de l'irrigation, C. BONTEMPS, S. COUTURE
  [Dynamics and uncertainty in irrigation management]

Questions de normes agro-alimentaires dans le contexte de globalisation

Présentation par J.-M.Codron, P. Sterns et L. Busch

• Grades and standards in the context of international trade: some ethical considerations,
  P.-B. THOMPSON
  
• La négociation des normes sur les produits animaux : une approche procédurale sur le cas du lait cru, B. SYLVANDER , O. BIENCOURT
  [The negotiation of animal products standards : a procedural approach applied to unpasteurized milk]
• A matter of good taste ? Quality and the construction of standards for chocolate products in the European Union, N. FOLD texte au format PDF
  
• L'Office international de la vigne et du vin et l'Organisation mondiale du commerce : les enjeux de la normalisation dans le secteur viti-vinicole, H. HANNIN, J.-M. CODRON et S. THOYER
  [The International Organization for Vine and Wine and the World Trade Organization : Standardization issues in the wine sector]

COMPTE RENDU DE LECTURE

E.BARLÖSIUS, Soziologie des Essens ; eine sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung in die Ernährungsforschung and J.-L. FLANDRIN et J. COBBI (Eds), Tables d'hier, tables d'ailleurs, by M. Bruegel

Décision séquentielle et Principe de Précaution
[Sequential decision-making and Precautionary Principle]

Nicolas TREICH* (* INRA/UMR LEERNA, Université de Toulouse 1, Pôle Manufacture, Bât.F, 21 allée de Brienne, 31000 Toulouse e-mail : ntreich@toulouse.inra.fr)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 55-56, 2000, pp 5-24

Summary - The Precautionary Principle (Rio Conference, Maastricht Treaty) is becoming increasingly prominent in the environmental protection law or on health safety issues. Given the important literature on the Precautionary Principle in social sciences in general, this paper provides an economic approach to the Precautionary Principle. In crude terms, the Precautionary Principle encourages the prevention of a risk before that full scientific information is available about it. Since this Principle implies that a decision should be taken in advance, even if it may be revised later on, it implies that the decision process is sequential. As a result, this paper proposes an interpretation of the Precautionary Principle based on the sequential decision theory. We report some insights from sequential investment theory (Dixit and Pindyck, 1994) in order to bring closer the notion of option value to that of precaution. We then introduce formally the notion of irreversibility and that of information structure. We also reinterpret the Bayes'rule as a rule that accounts for scientific progress in decision-mak-ing. This allows us to distinguish between a preventive and a precautionary strategy. Prevention is a static concept that refers to the management of a risk at a given time and given a stable probability distribution. Precaution is a dynamic concept that recognizes the evolution of scientific knowledge. A precautionary measure is defined as a prudent and temporary decision that permits to manage the current lack of scientific information. In order to examine the efficiency of the Precautionary Principle, we raise the following question: does more scientific uncertainty lead to bias decisions in favor of less current risk exposure? We show that the Precautionary Principle may be justified on the grounds of irreversibility alone (Henry, 1974). We also generalize this pure 'irreversibility effect' to integrate risk aversion and consumption externalities (Gollier et al., 2000). We finally report some empirical results from macroeconomic models that recently assessed the impact of scientific uncertainty on optimal climate policy (Nordhaus, 1994).

Key-words : precaution, irreversibility, sequential decision process, climate change, scientific uncertainty.

Christophe BONTEMPS*, Stéphane COUTURE** (* INRA/UMR LEERNA, Université de Toulouse 1, Pôle Manufacture, Bât.F, 21, allée de Brienne, 31000 Toulouse - e-mail : bontemps@toulouse.inra.fr ; ** CEMAGREF, BP 5095, 34033 Montpellier cedex 1 - e-mail : couture@montpellier.cemagref.fr)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 55-56, 2000, pp 25-43

Summary - Water supply for irrigation is limited in the southwestern France as in many regions of the world. Many conflicts between users highlight the fact that efficient irrigation scheduling is needed. The aims of this study are twofold. First we identify optimal irrigation strategies under stochastic weather conditions. Second we evaluate the economic losses due to uncertainty and risk aversion. The agronomic crop growth model, EPIC-Phase, generates yield data which are incorporated into a dynamic programming model for the determination of optimal irrigation scheduling under risk and limited water supply, in the southwest of France. The results indicate that optimal dynamic irrigation strategies produce higher profits, and utilities, and require less irrigation water than the optimal agronomic irrigation strategies.

Key-words : irrigation scheduling, uncertainty, risk aversion, bioeconomic simulation model, optimization.

Paul B. THOMPSON* (* Purdue University, Department of Philosophy, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1360, United States - e-mail : pault@purdue.edu)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 55-56, 2000, pp 53-70

Summary - Grades and standards for both domestic and international trade are based in part on beliefs about the purpose of commerce, its contribution to the public good, and general principles on which specific exchanges should be either permitted or restricted. These beliefs form the basis for ethical arguments about grades and standards. Two general types of argument have formed a dual ethical rationale for liberalization of trade restrictions and expansion of global trade. On the one hand, libertarian arguments stress the freedom or right of individuals to dispose of legally acquired property however they see fit. Libertarian arguments rule out restrictions on personal freedom except under conditions of exit and consent. On the other hand, utilitarian arguments stress the social benefit of free trade and utilize economic analysis to demonstrate that relatively open trading systems lead toward efficient use of society's total resources. These two rationales an come into conflict over grades and standards, however. The utilitarian rationale provides a basis for standards aimed at insuring health and safety that can conflict with libertarian belief that individuals should be at liberty to choose which risks to run, and which to avoid. Standards intended to support culturally based food practices become especially controversial, especially when they are negotiated at an international level. While utilitarians may be willing to use scientific risk assessment to predict actual benefits and risks of a given standard, libertarians may regard nationally based cultural food standards as intricate systems of exit and consent. If so they will object to international standard setting based on benefit-risk calculation, and will insist on procedures that leave opportunities for exit and that involve citizens in the active procurement of consent.

Key-words : ethics, neo-liberal theory, international trade, standards, food safety, food quality, libertarianism, utilitarianism.

La négociation des normes sur les produits animaux : une approche procédurale sur le cas du lait cru
[The negotiation of animal products standards : a procedural approach applied to unpasteurized milk]

Bertil SYLVANDER*, Olivier BIENCOURT** (* INRA-UREQUA, 8, avenue René Laennec, 72000 Le Mans - e-mail: sylvander@lemans.inra.fr ; ** Université du Maine, avenue Olivier Messiaen, BP 535, 72085 Le Mans cedex 09 - e-mail: biencourt@univ-lemans.fr)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 55-56, 2000, pp 71-90

Summary - The assumption on procedural rationality means, in the case of standards negotiation,
that actors commit themselves to discussions without being able to maximize issues, but through a rational method. The procedure implemented in this article is related to conventions theory and allows to explain the emergence of a new convention - taking the example of unpasterized milk to produce cheese with a (fictitious) designation of origin called "Tome d'Ost"- as a new basis for an agreement between milk producers and processors. Milk producers have been initiators for this orientation in favour of an agreement on unpasteurized milk, due to the good perception that consumers have on this kind of products. Processors have been at the outset against this decision, but realized during the negotiation process that it was in their interest to accept it as part of a more comprehensive agreement aimed at building up good hygienic production conditions.

Key-words : negotiation, conventions, standards, quality, international trade, unpasteurized milk, cheese.

Niels FOLD* (* Institute of Geography, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 10, 1350K, Denmark - e-mail : nf@geogr.ku.dk)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 55-56, 2000, pp 91-110

Summary - Efforts to harmonise the different national regulations on production and consumption of chocolate in the EU have run into problems since the early 1970s when new member states (Denmark, Ireland and the UK) joined the original six EEC members. In the new member states, manufacturers of chocolate products were allowed to replace some of the cocoa butter with other vegetable fats, known as cocoa butter equivalents (CBEs). In the original member states, however, chocolate manufacturers were not allowed to add CBE to their products. This difference in national food regulations within the EU obviously raises a problem for the establishment of a common market. The problem is not just technical as the difference is socially and commercially constructed by being embedded in : 1) particular national conceptions about quality and chocolate consumption traditions, and 2) particular industrial structures, i.e. variations in the relative power of the different actors within the national chocolate industries. The present paper examines different actor perspectives on quality. The actors involved are embedded in different segments of the chocolate chain, ranging from consumers to producers of basic raw materials. By examining how - and by whom - the different conceptions of quality are introduced, contested and reconfigured, the paper shows how a complex set of views on quality are transformed into standards. Standards are considered as the formalisation into rules and regulatory structures of a temporary compromise - as asymmetrical as it may be - between social actors.

Key-words : quality, standards, chocolate, shea nuts, European Union.

L'Office international de la vigne et du vin et l'Organisation mondiale du commerce : les enjeux de la normalisation dans le secteur viti-vinicole
[The International Organization for Vine and Wine and the World Trade Organization : Standardization issues in the wine sector]

Hervé HANNIN*, Jean-Marie CODRON**, Sophie THOYER* (* ENSAM, 2, place Viala, 34060 Montpellier cedex 01 - e-mail : hannin@ensam.inra.fr ; thoyer@ensam.inra.fr ; ** INRA, UMR MOISA, 2, place Viala, 34060 Montpellier 01 - e-mail : codron@ensam.inra.fr)

In : Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, n° 55-56, 2000, pp 111-138

Summary - The creation of international standards is an inherently conflictual process that inevitably involves both the objectives of individual market actors and the strategies of governments, the two of which are, at times, quite divergent. The wine industry, acting long before any other sector, established a system of standards, with oversight by the International Organization for Vine and Wines (OIV). This system broadly formalizes denominations of origin and product characteristics, and today, governs the production and international trade of wines. However, the legitimacy of the OIV's standards is being challenged both internally by member states and externally by the hegemony of the World Trade Organization, which is advancing a program of normalization of industry standards that conflicts with the OIV's basic premise that origin can be the basis of a standard. The future harmonization of these two systems of standards largely depends on the strategies that the OIV chooses to initiate. Also at issue is the basic architecture of global systems of standards and the hierarchy of different international organizations in the governance of trade.

Key-words : norms, international trade, wine, WTO.