International trade in agricultural products is in most cases the consequence of domestic governmental interventions which are supposed to achieve production, price, and income objectives of individual countries. Trade in agricultural products is more affected by national policies than trade in industrial products. This is not only due to specific agricultural policy objectives ; it is also due to some specifics of agricultural markets. There is no way to quantify the state of disarray of world agriculture or to assess the likely world welfare loss on sound empirical grounds. It is even not possible to assess whether individual countries would be better off with free trade than with the present pattern of protection in world agriculture. However, countries could be likely better off if they chose to intervene differently in agricultural markets. Hence, the present state of protectionism can hardly be justified on economic grounds. It seems to be the consequence of forces on the political market for protection- nism. The profession of trade economists could be likely of much more influence for trade policy decisions if, apart from research in normative trade policy, more research would be done in positive trade policy.
