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North American Agricultural Market Integration and Its Impact on the Food and Fiber System reviews the increasing integration of agricultural markets in Canada, Mexico, and the United States that has resulted in more efficient use of continental resources. NAFTA, technological change, and fundamental forces of supply and demand have helped bring about a more unified North American agricultural market.

Many factors determine the Structure of the Global Markets for Meat, including the relative availability of resources for raising and processing animals for meat. Countries' preferences for various cuts of meat provide opportunities for international trade.

recommended readings
International Evidence on Food Consumption Patterns analyzes expenditures across 114 countries on major consumption categories, including food and different food subcategories. Results indicate poorer countries are more responsive to price and income changes and also allocate larger shares of their total budget to necessities such as food.

NAFTA's Impacts on U.S. Agriculture: Trade and Beyond concludes that NAFTA has generally benefited U.S. agriculture and related industries. NAFTA contributed to a more than doubling of U.S. agricultural trade with Canada and Mexico in the 1990s. Beyond direct trade impacts, NAFTA established rules and institutions that mitigate potential trade frictions, promote foreign direct investment, and facilitate discourse on environmental issues.

Effects of North American Free Trade Agreement on Agriculture and the Rural Economy examines developments in trade, policies, dispute resolution, employment, and investment. The trade assessment focuses on 35 commodities and commodity groupings. Also addressed are recent developments in U.S.-Mexico transportation and the relationship between trade liberalization and the environment.

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recommended data products
Production, Supply, and Distribution (PS&D) contains official USDA data on production, supply, and distribution of agricultural commodities for the United States and major importing and exporting countries. The database provides projections for the coming year and historical data for more than 200 countries and major crop, livestock, fishery, and forest products.

Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS) provides U.S. agricultural exports and imports, volume and value, by country, by commodity, and by calendar year, fiscal year, and month, for varying periods, such as 1935 to the present or 1989 to the present. Updated monthly or annually.

WTO Agricultural Trade Policy Commitments Database contains data on implementation of trade policy commitments by WTO member countries. Data on domestic support, export subsidies, and tariffs are organized for comparison across countries. This queriable database offers various options for viewing and downloading data.

Agricultural Market Access Database (AMAD) is a publicly available information tool for analyzing WTO market access issues in agriculture. It contains data and information on WTO member countries, including tariff schedules, tariff bindings, applied tariff rates, country notifications to the WTO, import quantities, and other data useful in tariff analysis.