Event

Welcome to the final conference for the project Traders in the food value chain: Firm size and international food distribution. The project examines organization, market structure and distribution along the value chains in international food trade, focusing on Norway's seafood exports and agricultural exports and imports. The conference contains two parts, and you are welcome to join both, or just one of them.

In the part before lunch, researchers from SNF, NUPI and Ruralis will present analyses of Norwegian export and trade at the firm level, based on detailed data for Norway’s trade (NUPI, SNF) or case studies (for agricultural exports, Ruralis). To what extent is the export success for salmon due to skilled traders? Does the organization of trade vary across seafood products, and which mode is more efficient? Is the organization of trade different for large and small firms? The Directorate of Norwegian Customs will talk about how science can be useful in customs control.

The second part of the conference will focus on trade and development, including innovation and the role of intermediaries in trade; Norway’s imports of agricultural goods from Africa (meat and flowers); and seafood trade in India. How is import organization and market structure affected by tariffs and quotas? How do the ever more stringent rules for food safety affect the organization of trade; are small firms able to handle this? Why does the price of flowers from Africa multiply on its way to Norway, what role do intermediaries play in trade?

The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council from 2014 to 2019, and it is an interdisciplinary collaboration between NUPI, SNF in Bergen and Ruralis in Trondheim, with international partners in the US, UK and India. A large number of publications from the project are already available.

PROGRAM:

09.00-09.15	Arne Melchior, NUPI: Overview of the project
09.15-10.50	Session 1: Firm-level analysis of trade, with particular emphasis on Norwegian food exports
	Hans-Martin Straume, BI: Norwegian seafood exports – a firm-level perspective.
	Jostein Vik, Ruralis: Global Value Chains and Middlemen. A Comparative Case-Study of Norwegian Agricultural Export
	Erling Vårdal, SNF/University of Bergen: Invoicing currencies in Norwegian foreign trade 2004-2014
10.50-11.05	Coffee break
11.05-11.45	Hege Medin, NUPI: Intermediaries in trade
11.45-12.15	Siren Tønnesen, Directorate of Norwegian Customs: A role for science in customs control?
12.15-12.30	Q&A
12.30-13.00	Lunch break
13.00-14.50	Session 2: Value chains and intermediaries in developing country trade
	Fulvio Castellacci, TIK, University of Oslo: Product innovation and intermediaries in international trade.
	Karl Rich, CGIAR/Ben Bennett, NRI: Of red lines and red cars: the impacts on preferential trade access in beef on development and market access in Namibia and Botswana
	Meenakshi Rajeev, ISEC: Understanding Price Differences of Selected Fisheries Items in India: A State-wise Analysis
	Hege Medin, NUPI: Flowers from Africa. Preferential treatment of Norwegian flower imports
14.50-15.00	Q&A and summing up