LIBÉRALISATION AGRICOLE ET DÉVELOPPEMENT : ENJEUX, PARADOXES ET AMBIGUÏTES

Agricultural trade liberalization is a complex process, insofar as its shapes and stakes are concerned, in which numerous issues clash. This process comes at a time of high technical change. The consequences of agricultural trade liberalization are altogether paradoxical, ambiguous and uncertain, as to its impact, especially in developing countries. They are paradoxical as they lay out a new productive and institutional scene far from the liberal myth of selfindividual producers emancipated from administrative constraints. They are ambiguous as they shift rents instead of removing them, although allegedly in the name of consumers and of rents eradication. They are finally uncertain as they can either boost or impede growth depending on how the process is led.