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About ICONE
The Institute for International Trade Negotiations (ICONE) is an organization that has become a reference in studies and projects on agriculture and agribusiness in Brazil and the world. ICONE stands out through its applied research in the economic and regulatory field by providing accurate information that anticipates tendencies in the production and trade plans of agricultural products and shows ways of dealing with these.
As a non-profit agribusiness think-tank, our work often functions as a base for the definition of public policies and negotiating positions in international trade and other areas that influence agricultural production and trade. These studies add value to the private-sector, since these help in the understanding of the dynamics of Brazilian and foreign agribusiness.
ICONE has five working fields:
· Trade policy and international negotiations
· Emerging economies and agriculture trade
· Agricultural modeling and projections, and land-use
· Agriculture, Trade and sustainability
· Market intelligence
Currently, ICONE is involved in projects and research on biofuels, land-use change, green-house gas emissions, certification and private standards for trade. Besides this, ICONE is also concerned with themes like the impacts that the abovementioned have on climate change.
Objectives
ICONE’s objective is to become a partner of the private and public sectors in the quest for objective and pragmatic answers to the various challenges faced by agribusiness, enabling different stakeholders to better position themselves in the context of a dynamic world.
The Institute works with tailor-made projects which seek to widen the economic participation of Brazil in the world and also to promote Brazil’s social-economic development by means of our specialized team using analytical skills and reflections about the future of the national and international agribusiness sectors.
Main Attributes
· Analyze the dynamics of markets and agricultural policies of Brazilian trade partners and impacts on the Brazilian economy;
· Offer technical support to the private sector, policy-makers and negotiators in the definition of strategies relating to the production and selling of agricultural products;
· Develop applied research and technical studies that contribute to the expansion of international trade and investments: mainly in agricultural, agro-industrial and energy commodities;
· Develop simulations and projections relating to agribusiness that allow the understanding of tendencies and that define actions and directions to be followed;
· Study cases relating to land-use, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change;
· Actuate the formation of international networks of applied research into agro-energy emerging economies;
· Carry out detailed studies on the impact of agricultural protectionism of Brazilian products, as well as anticipate trends in the area of non-tariff barriers;
· Translate the demands, jargon and results of international negotiations for the private sector and the opinion-makers;
· Disseminate information, research into trade policy and agricultural trade through seminars given to civil society, as well as the capacity-building of journalists.
Advantages
 Working Context
According to the United Nations (UN), the world’s population will reach nine billion in 2050 and so the demand for food, fiber, fuel and other natural resources will grow significantly. This demand implies an increase in agricultural production, taking into account the technologies that lead to higher productivity and minimal environmental impact.
Furthermore, agriculture contributes significantly to the production of various environmental services, such as: the maintenance and improvement in water quality, soil protection, conservation of biodiversity, protection against extreme climatic events, and carbon capturing, among many others.
For all these reasons and considering that Brazilian agriculture and its respective agro-industrial chains represent around 25% of GDP, it is fundamental to have the support of an institute like ICONE, which is specialized in giving constant assistance, full understanding, projections and support in agricultural negotiations.
History
ICONE was created on 10th of March 2003, in response to the need to supply the government and private sector with studies and applied research in areas of trade and trade policy, relating mainly to agriculture and agribusiness. Among the main research ICONE has conducted are those relating to the agricultural negotiations of the Doha Round at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and dozens of simulations requested by the Brazilian government, which offer technical support to position Brazil in the G-20.
Since 2008, ICONE has been developing research and projects on the dynamics of land-use in Brazil, with emphasis on the modeling of the Brazilian agribusiness performance. Specifically, regarding supply, demand, exports, planted areas, profitability and elaboration of quantitative trade projections. This model was used by ICONE in the ‘Low Carbon Study Project – Brazil’, coordinated by the World Bank with the collaboration of various other organizations.
Since its foundation, the institute has carried out dozens of projects, as shown below:
2003/2004:
· Intensive support to the Brazilian government and the G-20 inGeneva by elaborating technical studies to balance the knowledge of agriculture, trade and protectionism between the member-countries;
· Active participation in the formulation of the private sector’s position for the European Union- Mercosul Trade Agreement;
· Elaboration of documents, in order to formulate public opinion on the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA);
· Preparation of the first basic studies analyzing the technical and sanitary barriers to the Brazilian agro-industrial exports;
· Elaboration of the diagnostics on the strategies of trade policy and bilateral agreements of the European Commission and the United States;
· Elaboration of the studies on the themes of the multilateral negotiations not relating to agriculture, such as services, government procurement, investments and antidumping;
2005:
· Technical support to the Brazilian government and to the G-20 in preparation for the first offers made by the group in the agricultural negotiations of the WTO’s Doha Development Round;
· Creation of a South-American research network with the aim of stimulating the regional cooperation on topics of agriculture and trade;
· Elaboration of different studies evaluating the impact of tariff barriers against products and markets of interest to Brazil.
2006:
· Continuation in the studies and work of technical support to the private sector and Brazilian government in the Doha Round negotiations;
· Elaboration of the first large-coverage study into sustainability focusing on the soybean expansion in the Legal Amazon;
· Creation of an Asian and Latin-American Agrifood Research Network (ALARN) with the aim of discussing and comparing the significant trends in the agribusiness sectors in the two regions;
· Launch of the four year Project Support for International Trade Liberalization and Integration Process’ (Market Opening Process Support and the Integration with International Trade), with support of the Inter-American Development Bank, and resources of the Multilateral Investment Fund (IDB/FUMIN);
· Preparation of comparative studies of trade policies in different countries that facilitated better discussion of Brazilian strategies;
· Continuation of the work on measuring the impact of tariff and quota import barriers against products of interest to Brazilian agribusiness;
2007:
· Preparation of a series of studies and actions focusing on the interests of each of ICONE’s sponsors;
· Prepare the first studies into market intelligence with projections of the international sugar and ethanol market and several specific studies on the rice sector;
· A biofuels research area was developed, with a series of studies, speeches and creation of a database. Several studies were requested by ICONE’s sponsors and external clients during this year;
· Support to the poultry and turkey industry in the ‘salted chicken dispute’ and the creation of European quotas for this sector, as well as for the bovine industry in topics related to meat quotas in the European Union;
· Organization of international seminars. One of which was to present the results of the studies made by the researchers of our Asian and Latin-American research network, and the second dealt with trade in tropical products.
2008:
· Keeping pace with the agricultural negotiations of the WTO’s Doha Round and negotiations of the Cartagena Protocol;
· Develop a model for projecting land use in Brazil with the objective of supporting the sugarcane and bioenergy sector in its international agenda (Brazilian Land Use Model – BLUM);
· Extension of studies into market intelligence with a focus on poultry and rice;
· Preparation of the second project of the Asian and Latin-American research network, focusing on the biofuel sector;
· Initiation of studies on the climate change negotiations, and participation in the Convention on Climate Change (COP-14);
· Participation in different research relating to sustainability, agriculture and trade, in initiatives on certification and multistakeholder dialogues;
· Preparing studies analyzing the interests of Brazilian agribusiness in multilateral trade negotiations.
2009:
· Application of the modeling results on land-use in the legislation discussions on biofuels in the United States and the European Union;
· Discussion with the private sector, within FIESP (Federation of Industries in São Paulo), of the long-term performance scenarios of Brazilian agriculture;
· Fine-tuning the studies into market intelligence of the poultry and rice sectors;
· Elaboration of studies evaluating the inter-relations between trade, sustainability and certifications.
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