Rodríguez, Juan David Gutiérrez --- "Competition Law Goals in Agricultural Markets: A Latin American Perspective" [2012] ELECD 424; in Zimmer, Daniel (ed), "The Goals of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Goals of Competition Law

Editor(s): Zimmer, Daniel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857936608

Section: Chapter 24

Section Title: Competition Law Goals in Agricultural Markets: A Latin American Perspective

Author(s): Rodríguez, Juan David Gutiérrez

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

24. Competition law goals in
agricultural markets: a Latin
American perspective
Juan David Gutiérrez Rodríguez* 11




1 INTRODUCTION

Competition policy is not an isolated public policy and must interact with
the state's other economic policies. However, the principles underlying
competition policies and agricultural policies may not always be com-
patible. On the one hand, agricultural policies may pursue a number of
economic and non-economic objectives ­ e.g., the stability of agricultural
goods' prices; the stability of revenue for different agents in the production
chain; the maintenance of a certain income level for rural households; the
control of food prices; and/or to guarantee the country's food security;
amongst others. On the other hand, competition policies aim at promot-
ing and maintaining freedom of competition and the efficiency of markets
(allocative, productive and dynamic) and/or to maximize consumer welfare.
In consequence, there are different situations where the government
needs to solve the trade-offs that arise between the attainment of agricul-
tural policy's goals and competition policy's objectives. For example, the
stability of agricultural prices may require either command-and-control
policies (that by definition rule out competition policies) or a certain degree
of coordination between the agricultural market's economic agents ­ inter-
action that otherwise would be deemed as an infringement to competition
law. In this sense, governments must balance diverse policy schemes that
reflect the view of different interests at stake, e.g., consumer welfare versus
rural workers welfare or producer ...