The Political Economy of Agricultural and Food Policies

The Political Economy of Agricultural and Food Policies
Author: Johan Swinnen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2018-05-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1137501022

Winner of the European Association of Agricultural Economists Book Award Food and agriculture have been subject to heavy-handed government interventions throughout much of history and across the globe, both in developing and in developed countries. Today, more than half a trillion US dollars are spent by some governments to support farmers, while other governments impose regulations and taxes that hurt farmers. Some policies, such as price regulations and tariffs, distribute income but reduce total welfare by introducing economic distortions. Other policies, such as public investments in research, food standards, or land reforms, may increase total welfare, but these policies come also with distributional effects. These distributional effects influence the preferences of interest groups and in turn influence policy decisions. Political considerations are therefore crucial to understand how agricultural and food policies are determined, to identify the constraints within which welfare-enhancing reforms are possible (or not), and finally to understand how coalitions can be created to stimulate growth and reduce poverty.

American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly

American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly
Author: Jon Lauck
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2016-02-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 080329526X

The breathtaking number of mergers and joint ventures among agribusiness firms has left independent American farmers facing the power of an increasingly concentrated buying sector. The origin of farmers' concern with such economic concentration dates back to protests against meatpackers and railroads in the late nineteenth century. Jon Lauck examines the dimensions of this problem in the American Midwest in the decades following World War II. He analyzes the nature of competition within meat-packing and grain markets. In addition, he addresses concerns about corporate entry into production agriculture and the potential displacement of a production system defined by independent family farms. Lauck also considers the ability of farmers to organize in order to counter the market power of large-scale agribusiness buyers. He explores the use of farmer cooperatives and other mechanisms which may increase the bargaining power of farmers. The book offers the first serious historical examination of the National Farmers Organization, which fully embraced the bargaining power cause in the postwar period. Lauck finds that independent farmers' attempts at organization have been more successful than previously recognized, but he also shows that their successes have been undermined by the growing concentration and power of agri-business firms, justifying a new approach to antitrust law in agricultural markets.

The Politics of Food Supply

The Politics of Food Supply
Author: Bill Winders
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0300156235

This book deals with an important and timely issue: the political and economic forces that have shaped agricultural policies in the United States during the past eighty years. It explores the complex interactions of class, market, and state as they have affected the formulation and application of agricultural policy decisions since the New Deal, showing how divisions and coalitions within Southern, Corn Belt, and Wheat Belt agriculture were central to the ebb and flow of price supports and production controls. In addition, the book highlights the roles played by the world economy, the civil rights movement, and existing national policy to provide an invaluable analysis of past and recent trends in supply management policy.

The Political Economy of the Common Agricultural Policy

The Political Economy of the Common Agricultural Policy
Author: Fernando Collantes
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2020-03-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000055434

What is the balance of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy more than half a century after its birth? Does it illustrate the virtues of the European model of coordinated capitalism, as opposed to US-style liberal capitalism? Or is it an incoherent set of instruments that exert diverse negative impacts and, like Frankenstein’s monster, seems to have escaped the control of its designers? The Political Economy of the Common Agricultural Policy does not criticize the CAP from the liberal standpoint that views most public interventions in the economy as bad for efficiency and welfare. The CAP has been costly to Europeans, both as consumers and as taxpayers, and has also generated a number of negative impacts upon third countries, but these costs and impacts have been more moderate than is suggested. This book proposes that the issue with the CAP is not a generic problem of coordinating capitalism but, instead, a more specific problem of low-quality coordination. The text argues that profound reform of the European Union’s institutions and policies is required to counter the rapid rise of a more Eurosceptical state of mind but – in the case of agricultural policy – history casts serious doubts on the capacity of the European network of agriculture-related politicians to lead such a reform. This key work is essential reading for researchers, graduate students, and master’s level docents of the Common Agricultural Policy and – more broadly – European Union policy and reform.

The Political Economy of the 2014-2020 Common Agricultural Policy

The Political Economy of the 2014-2020 Common Agricultural Policy
Author: Johan F. M. Swinnen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
ISBN: 9781783484843

This book is the first to document the reform of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and to analyse the political and economic factors which determined the outcome of the negotiations. The policy (non-)reform will affect the world's global food security and agricultural ...

Distortions to Agricultural Incentives

Distortions to Agricultural Incentives
Author: Kym Anderson
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 682
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821376667

This volume in the 'Distortions to Agricultural Incentives' series focus on distortions to agricultural incentives from a global perspective.

Political Economy of Agricultural Development in India

Political Economy of Agricultural Development in India
Author: Akina Venkateswarlu
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 569
Release: 2021-11-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000485927

The book covers Indian agricultural development from the colonial to the present period. It examines how ruling class political ideology determined the agricultural policies from colonial rule. It considers both quantitative and qualitative aspects in all periods: colonial period to pre-green revolution phase, post-green revolution phase (early and late stages) and post-globalisation phase after 1991. India has achieved the ability to maintain food security, through enough food grain buffer stocks to meet the enormous public distribution system. But, with India’s entry into WTO in 1994, euphoria has been created among all types of farmers to adopt commercial crops like cotton cost-intensive inputs. Even food grain crops are grown through use of costly irrigation and chemicalised inputs. But they lacked remunerative prices, and so farmers began to commit suicides, which crossed 3.5 lakh. Government of India attributed this agrarian crisis to the technology fatigue and gave scope for second green revolution (GR-II). GR-I was achieved by public sector enterprise, whereas the GR-II as gene revolution is a result of private sector enterprise/MNCs. There is fear that opening up of the sector may lead to handover of the family farms to big agri-multinationals. GOI’s proposal to double farmers’ income by 2022 is feasible only when the problems, being faced by small, marginal and tenant farmers, are addressed in agricultural marketing, credit and extension services. Now, it is time to go for suitable forms of cooperative/collective agriculture, as 85 percent of total cultivators are the small and marginal farmers. This book is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print versions of this book in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Political Economy of Agro-Food Markets in China

The Political Economy of Agro-Food Markets in China
Author: L. Augustin-Jean
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2013-11-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1137277955

China's agricultural production and food consumption have increased tremendously, leading to a complete evolution of agro-food markets. The book is divided into two parts; the first part reviews the theoretical framework for the 'social construction of the markets,' while the second part presents the implication for the agro-food markets in China.

The Political Economy of Agrarian Change in Latin America

The Political Economy of Agrarian Change in Latin America
Author: Matilda Baraibar Norberg
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-08-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9783030245856

This book makes an original contribution to the discussion about agro-food exporting countries’ governmental policy. It presents a historicized and internationally contextualized exploration of the political economy of agrarian change in three Latin American countries: Argentina, Praguay, and Uruguay. By comparatively examining how these states have acted in a context of global driven market forces and historically formed institutions, the monograph illuminates the differing capacities of state autonomy under the present era of globalized agriculture.

The Isolated State in Relation to Agriculture and Political Economy

The Isolated State in Relation to Agriculture and Political Economy
Author: Johann von Thünen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2009-05-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230274110

This volume is the first ever English translation of Part III of von Thünen`s famous 'Isolated State'. It deals with the optimum rotation period of woods – a central problem of capital theory which has been studied by many famous economists. Thünen's early approach to the problem compares very well with most of the later attempts.