Food security can be defined as the perceived availability of a high-quality, domestically-produced staple food supply which will maintain the existing standard of living. This book provides a forum for a panel of distinguished authors to debate such issues as whether or not many developed countries in Asia - such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Singapore - have legitimate concerns about their food security. They find, controversially, that this issue is of importance to all countries, not just to developing countries lacking the income to acquire an adequate food supply. The authors analyse the forces affecting the demand for, and supply of, staples such as rice, vegetable oils and protein meals. Rice is the most important staple in Asia and so the authors pay particular attention to the effects of rice production strategies and trade policies on food security. They examine the implications of trade liberalisation in the ASEAN free trade area and in East Asia on agricultural trade and food security. They also discuss the implications of China's ongoing economic transition on its intra-provincial and international agricultural trade, and its policy on self-sufficiency. Food Security in Asia provides a timely evaluation of the food security issue which will be of interest to scholars of Asian studies, agricultural economics and international economics.

This book reports the proceedings of the symposium, "Chinese Rural Development: Strategies and Experience," organized by the China Com-mittee of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) and held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 30, 1989. The editors would like to thank members of the committee, listed below, for their time and efforts in planning, organizing, and hosting the symposium.

Over the last two decades, increasing concerns about health risks related to diets have had significant impacts on food consumption patterns in the United States and Europe. This timely book presents the results of several comparative studies of the impacts of health information on food consumption behavior amongst various socio-economic groups, and across many different countries. It also provides economic analysis of food demand estimations, and implications for future global food systems.