 Les firmes internationales dans le commerce des céréalesMatthieu Rougé Économie rurale, 1976, vol. 116 Abstract: Are cereals strategic products ? They are if one considers the importance of cereals in the world economy and in the total food consumption of the world population. But not if one means by this that cereals are in a similar position (and hence should follow a similar policy) to that of other indispensable raw materials such as oil. Cereals, surpluses or deticits arise. Ihe wacld distribution of production areas, the variety of the produce, the different cycles and the different harvesting seasons rule out any risk of there being a monopoly of the cereal supply. Are the merchants multinational firms ? These firms are international not multinational. A multinational owns, controls or administers production and commercial departments in several countries because the main firm has grown too big for its national base and has sought new openings abroad, thus reaching multinational size. The international merchant on the other hand has a range, a market and activités which were international from the beginning and by their very nature. State intervention or the grain market. State intervention has existed for a very long time. After a protectionist period the setting up of the ONIC in France masked the introduction of a whole system of organization of production and markets. The policy of price and quantity control on the whole leads to the producer's income being maintained. This first attempt at State intervention in the field of market organization was reinforced when the responsibility for working out a common agricultural policy was transfered to Brussels. Increasingly stringent and highly perfected means of action and mean term management are the characteristics of the EEC's planning of certain forms of trade. Recently a new trend has emerged especially in France. France because of its farming in general and its grain potential in particular has a product of strategic importance, one might even say a weapon, to be exported to the consumer countries, the oil-producing countries. She can, therefore, reach trade agreements, the deals we have heard so much about. And the French government is trying to set up organizations to deal with certain operations. Finally, to make sure that French products will be included, entirely French firms and official bodies are given the task of negotiating these deals. In fact, in the past, French grain exports did not need to be encouraged and developed. On the contrary they were constantly held in check (to combat inflation in particular). Even without being able to take advantage of the market opportunities, grain crops were nevertheless sold at a higher price than on the world market. Moreover, bilateral agreements have more political than economic importance and trade agreements are above all declarations of intent. Recent government intervention in actual deals has failed for in fact only competition between sellers ensures good buying terms for price, for the quality of the product and safe delivery. So-called « optional » contracts were introduced to guarantee a supply that did not depend on its source. Some people would like to see State intervention in deals resulting from trade agreements to prevent « French products being sacrificed in these optional sales to products from other countries chosen by multinational firms with a purely profit-making aim ». Such arguments disregard the most elementary workings of the world market and the indispensable services rendered by merchants. Keywords: International; Relations/Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ersfer:350974 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Économie rurale from French Society of Rural Economics (SFER Société Française d'Economie Rurale) Contact information at EDIRC. |
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