World Trade in Commodities

Census of Manufactures. 1947 Foreign Trade Statistics Notes FT IKh 410—imports, exports Office of International Trade Foreign Commerce Weekly Current Export Bulletfti World Trade in Commodities Other releases... 

World Trade in Commodities (irregular) (U. S. Department of Commerce)... 

World trade in coal totaled 576 million tons (524 million tonnes) in 1998, of which 523 million tons (476 million tonnes) shipped in oceangoing vessels. Coal shipments use the same dry bulk vessels that transport other bulk commodities, such as iron ore and bauxite, so vessel rates for coal shipments arc hostage to wider market forces. However, the cyclic pattern observable in vessel rates disguises the long-term trend in which rates have varied little in nominal terms. For example, spot vessel coal rates in the 1998-1999 time period were about the same as in the mid-1980s, varying between 5 and 10 per ton. 

Foods and Veterinary Medicine The FDA s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) actively participate in the development of international standards by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex). Codex is an international organization formed in 1962 to facilitate world trade in foods and to promote consumer protection. It is a subsidiary of two United Nations components, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the WHO. Codex standards cover food commodity standards (similar to FDA standards of identity), food additives, food contaminants, and residues of veterinary drugs in food. FDA officials chair two Codex committees, the Food Hygiene Committee and the Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods Committee, and participate in many others. 

They control world trade in gold and diamonds, a necessary aspect of "hard commodity" exchange for drags. 

A conservative estimate of the total value of the products from the mineral industry is ca 3.9 trillion ia terms of 1992 dollars (4). This estimate does not include the value of products derived from secondary sources such as recycling (qv) or reclamation. Secondary recovery is significant for certain commodities. For example, in 1992 ca 30% of the world steel (qv) production, 46% of the world refined lead output, 15% of the world refined copper (qv) production, and ca 30% of the aluminum (see Aluminumand ALUMINUM alloys) output from the Western world were clearly identified as being derived from scrap. The value of the world mineral commodity export trade in 1992 was ca 616,698 million ia 1992 dollars. This accounted for ca 18% of all commodities exported (4). 

Chicken is no longer a product that is simply produced in the UK for domestic consumption. It is now imported from many countries of the world. It is a truly internationally traded commodity. This world trade is not the only change which the poultry meat market has experienced there has been a shift from frozen to fresh, a change from whole chicken to portions, the never-ending demand for breast meat and away from dark meat. Finally, there is the growth in the value-added sector, which in 1998 increased its share of the total retail chicken market from 36.3% to 38.6% of all sales (British Chicken Information Service 1999). Where does organic chicken meat feature in this changing scenario ... 

In summary, cotton s future is positive. Cotton use should benefit from consumer demand stemming from favorable economic growth prospects and because of research. On the production side, global output should continue to provide an adequate supply for mill demand. Finally, cotton, one of the most important textile fibers and one of the world s important oilseed crops, should continue to be recognized as a significant commodity in world trade and the consumption of this important fiber, food, and feed crop will continue to grow but at a slower rate than synthetic fibers. 

The primary economic rationale underlying the production of cotton is the trade in cotton fibre, which accounts for around 8o% of a cotton farmer s mcome In addition to fibre, the world s cotton farmers produce around 34 million tonnes of cottonseed every year . This high protein commodity is not only used as an animal feed, but is also a source of cottonseed oil around 3.1 million tonnes is used in the preparation of food each year . In total, cottonseed oil represents approximately 8% of the world s vegetable oil consumption ", providing the major source of fat and oil in Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, and forms a significant part of the diet of the Middle East (3.8 g/day), Far East (0.5 g/day), and Latin America (0.5 g/day). In total, as much as 65% of harvested cotton produce may enter the human food chain. ... 

Eight major oilseed crops traded in international markets account for more than 95% of the world s vegetable oil. These include soybean, cottonseed, peanut, sunflower, rapeseed, flaxseed, copra and palm kernel. Soybean is unique among these oilseed crops in that it also contains about 40% dry weight protein. Because of the large amounts of both oil and protein, soybean has dominated world oilseed production. The US, Brazil and China produce most of the world s soybean crop and as a widely traded commodity it is available throughout the world as a cheap source of quality protein and oil. 

The importance of Codex standards is that they offer a globally harmonized, unbiased and authoritative source of MRLs that take into account the various national GAP for a particular pesticide-commodity as well as available residue trial data. The authoritative nature of Codex MRLs has, in fact, been recognized and agreed in principle (if not always in practice) by the maj ority of important trading countries. The World Trade Organization (WTO), through a 1995 agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), identified Codex... 

Coffee plants are cultivated in more than 80 countries around the world, with 70% being produced by smallholder farmers (De Los Santos-Briones Hemfindez-Sotomayor, 2006). More than lOOmillion people in the coffee-growing areas worldwide derive their income directly or indirectly from coffee production (Mishra Slater, 2012). Brazil is the largest producer and exporter of C. arabica (ABIC, 2010 Silva et al., 2013), followed by Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela, Indonesia, Ethiopia, India and Mexico. Coffee plantations eover about 10.6 million ha of land, mostly in the tropics (Clay, 2004), and the coffee trade has an annual turnover of close to 10 billion US, making it the second most important commodity traded in the world next to petroleum (Silva et al., 2013). 

Second, poverty alleviation is also linked with world trade. Economic and political considerations are not always conducive to fair trade. Such distortions of global carbon flows, as commodities, need redress. Moreover, it would behoove developed nations to reduce their appetites for exotic but wasteful products of agriculture and horticulture. The issue is complex but the question must be asked Why do Ecuador and Colombia, to name but two nations, grow flowers for export to Eiuope and North America when a substantial proportion of their populations rely on Food Aid Flowers, attractive as they are, provide no calories they are decorative carbon which requires soil, water, simshine, labour and crop protection chemicals and fertilizers to produce. Another case in point is tobacco which does much more harm than good, not to mention poppy and other narcotic-producing crops. If there were no markets for such commodities no one would grow them and valuable resources would not be wasted. Poverty is also linked with food production and the likelihood of 12 x 10 people to... 

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