Us Agricultural And Food Policies

Policy analysis is a dynamic process of discovery rather than a passive exercise of memorizing facts and conclusions. This text provides opportunities to "practice the craft" of policy analysis by engaging the reader in realistic case studies and problem-solving scenarios that require the selection and use of applicable investigative techniques. US Agricultural and Food Policies will assist undergraduate students to learn how policy choices impact the overall performance of agricultural and food markets. It encourages students to systematically investigate scenarios with appropriate positive and normative tools. The book emphasizes the importance of employing critical thinking skills to address the complexities associated with the design and implementation of twenty-first-century agricultural and food policies. Students are asked to suspend their personal opinions and emotions, and instead apply research methods that require the careful consideration of both facts and values. The opportunities to build these investigative skills are abundant when we consider the diversity of modern agricultural and food policy concerns. Featuring case studies and critical thinking exercises throughout and supported by a Companion Website with slides, a test bank, glossary, and web/video links, this is the ideal textbook for any agricultural policy class.

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.

Western democratic welfare states often featured sectoral governance arrangements where governments negotiated policy with sectoral elites, based on shared ideas and exclusive institutional arrangements. Food and agriculture policy is widely considered an extreme case of compartmentalized and ‘exceptionalist’ policy-making, where sector-specific policy ideas and institutions provide privileged access for sectoral interest groups and generate policies that benefit their members. In the last two decades, policy exceptionalism has been under pressure from internationalization of policy-making, increasing interlinkage of policy areas and trends towards self-regulation, liberalization and performance-based policies. This book introduces the concept of ‘post-exceptionalism’ to characterize an incomplete transformation of exceptionalist policies and politics which preserves significant exceptionalist features. Post-exceptional constellations of ideas, institutions, interests and policies can be complementary and stable, or tense and unstable. Food and agriculture policy serves as an example to illustrate an incomplete transformation towards a more open, contested and networked politics. Chapters on agricultural policy-making in the European Union and the United States, the politics of food in Germany and the United Kingdom, transnational organic standard setting and global food security debates demonstrate how ‘postexceptionalism’ helps to understand the co-existence of transformation and path dependency in contemporary public policies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

This new edition offers a timely update to the leading textbook dedicated to all aspects of U.S. food policy. The update accounts for experience with policy changes in the 2014 Farm Bill and prospects for the next Farm Bill, the publication of the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the removal of Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status for trans fats, the collapse of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty, stalled child nutrition reauthorization legislation, reforms in food-labeling policy, the consequences of the 2016 presidential election and many other developments. The second edition offers greater attention both to food justice issues and to economic methods, including extensive economics appendices in a new online Companion Website. As with the first edition, real-world controversies and debates motivate the book’s attention to economic principles, policy analysis, nutrition science and contemporary data sources. The book assumes that the reader's concern is not just the economic interests of farmers and food producers but also includes nutrition, sustainable agriculture, food justice, the environment and food security. The goal is to make U.S. food policy more comprehensible to those inside and outside the agri-food sector whose interests and aspirations have been ignored. The chapters cover U.S. agriculture, food production and the environment, international agricultural trade, food and beverage manufacturing, food retail and restaurants, food safety, dietary guidance, food labeling, advertising and federal food assistance programs for the poor. The author is an agricultural economist with many years of experience in the nonprofit advocacy sector, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and as a professor at Tufts University. The author's blog on U.S. food policy provides a forum for discussion and debate of the issues set out in the book.

This text aims to help students develop an understanding of problems, policy alternatives, and their consequences. Economic principles are introduced to explain how the tools of analysis can be used to provide insight into the economic impact of particular policies.

Handbook of International Food and Agricultural Policies is a three-volume set that aims to provide an accessible reference for those interested in the aims and implementation of food and farm policies throughout the world. The treatment is authoritative, comprehensive and forward looking. The three volumes combine scholarship and pragmatism, relating academic writing to real-world issues faced by policy-makers. A companion volume looking at the future resource and climate challenges for global agriculture will be published in the future. Volume I covers Farm and Rural Development policies of developed and developing countries. The volume contains 20 country chapters together with a concluding comprehensive synthesis of lessons to be drawn from the experiences of the individual countries. Volume II examines the experience of countries with food policies, including those dealing with food safety and quality and the responsibility for food security in developing countries. The chapters address issues such as obesity, nutritional supplements, organic foods, food assistance programs, biotech food acceptance, and the place of private standards. Volume III describes and explains the international trade dimension of farm and food policies -- both at the bilateral and regional level -- and also the multilateral rules that influence and constrain individual governments. The volume also looks at the steps that countries are together taking to meet the needs of developing and low-income countries. The volumes are of value to students and researchers interested in economic development, agricultural markets and food systems. Policy-makers and professionals involved in monitoring and regulating agricultural and food markets would also find the volumes useful in their practical work. This three-volume set is also a suitable source for the general public interested in how their food system is influenced by government policies.

Provides a comprehensive discussion and analysis of the role government plays in agriculture in the United States, and the effects of the federal governments agricultural and food policies on business.* NEW- Devotes a new chapter to the ways in which the 1996 Farm bill changes the role of government in agriculture. Pg. 277-295 * NEW- Features comprehensive treatment of international trade policy with an up-to-date discussion of the World Trade Organization, GATT, and the issues likely to dominate the next round of trade negotiations beginning in 2000. Pg. 168-169 * NEW- Presents policies relating to food safety (pathogens and pesticides) as well as the implications of welfare reform on the future scope and structure of the USDA. Pg. 420-461 * NEW- Discusses current perspectives on the balance of world food supply and demand. Pg. 117-120 * Provides an understanding of contemporary farm policy decisions by discussing the process of policy formulation, the macroeconomics of agriculture, the international agricultural economic and policy environment, and the fundamental economic relationships and principles that affect todays agriculture. * Presents the political process as it relates