Agricultural Economics and Food Policy in New Zealand
Agricultural Economics and Food Policy in New Zealand

Author: David Hall

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-11-17

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 303086300X

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The book analyses agricultural economics and food policy in New Zealand, where farming produce has been by far the main export commodity. Farming exports’ importance, together with the need to diversify exports away from a former colonial relationship with the UK, makes liberalising agricultural trade a major concern for New Zealand. Farmers, themselves, have influenced, significantly, policy development and implementation through their organisation, Federated Farmers. After World War II farmers at first encouraged Government financial support for farming and by the 1980s farming was highly subsidised. Farmers recognised in the 1980s that New Zealand’s economic problems demanded reduced Government intervention and accepted ending farming subsidies. New Zealand then encouraged, globally, ‘farming without subsidies’. New Zealand projected an image of environmental cleanliness and greenness in support of its exporting but into the 21st century wrestled to maintain that image because farming impacted on water quality and climate change emissions.

Depolarizing Food and Agriculture
Depolarizing Food and Agriculture

Author: Andrew Barkley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-10-10

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1134689381

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Many issues in food and agriculture are portrayed as increasingly polarized. These include industrial vs. sustainable agriculture, conventional vs. organic production methods, and global vs. local food sourcing, to name only three. This book addresses the origins, validity, consequences, and potential resolution of these and other divergences. Political and legal actions have resulted in significant monetary and psycho-social costs for groups on both sides of these divides. Rhetoric on many issues has caused misinformation and confusion among consumers, who are unsure about the impact of their food choices on nutrition, health, the environment, animal welfare, and hunger. In some cases distrust has intensified to embitterment on both sides of many issues, and even to violence. The book uses economic principles to help readers better understand the divisiveness that prevails in the agricultural production, food processing and food retailing industries. The authors propose solutions to promote resolution and depolarization between advocates with seemingly irreconcilable differences. A multifaceted, diverse, but targeted approach to food production and consumption is suggested to promote social well-being, and reduce or eliminate misinformation, anxiety, transaction costs and hunger.

Making Better Policies for Food Systems
Making Better Policies for Food Systems

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2021-01-11

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9264967834

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Food systems around the world face a triple challenge: providing food security and nutrition for a growing global population; supporting livelihoods for those working along the food supply chain; and contributing to environmental sustainability. Better policies hold tremendous promise for making progress in these domains.

Water Quality and Agriculture
Water Quality and Agriculture

Author: James Shortle

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-06-12

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 3030470873

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Water pollution control has been a top environmental policy priority of the world’s most developed countries for decades, and the focus of significant regulation and public and private spending. Yet, significant water quality problems remain, and trends for some pollutants are in the wrong direction. This book addresses the economics of water pollution control and water pollution control policy in agriculture, with an aim towards providing students, environmental policy analysts, and other environmental professionals with economic concepts and tools essential to understanding the problem and crafting solutions that can be effective and efficient. The book will also examine existing policies and proposed reforms in the developed world. Although this book addresses and has a general applicability to major water pollutants from agriculture (e.g., pesticides, pharmaceuticals, sediments, nutrients), it will focus on the sediment and nutrient pollution problem. The economic and scientific foundations for pollution management are best developed for these pollutants, and they are currently the top priorities of policy makers. Accordingly, the authors provide both highly salient and informative cases for developing concepts and methods of general applicability, with high profile examples such as the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie, and the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone in the US; the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe; and Lake Taupo in New Zealand.

Sustainable Agricultural Development
Sustainable Agricultural Development

Author: John M. Antle

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-02-24

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 3030345998

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This book provides a non-technical, accessible primer on sustainable agricultural development and its relationship to sustainable development based on three analytical pillars. The first is to understand agriculture as complex physical-biological-human systems. Second is the economic perspective of understanding tradeoffs and synergies among the economic, environmental and social dimensions of these systems at farm, regional and global scales. Third is the understanding of these agricultural systems as the supply side of one sector of a growing economy, interacting through markets and policies with other sectors at local, national and global scales. The first part of the book introduces the concept of sustainability and develops an analytical framework based on tradeoffs quantified using impact indicators in the economic, environmental and social domains, linking this framework to the role of agriculture in economic growth and development. Next the authors introduce the reader to the sustainability challenges of major agroecosystems in the developing and industrialized worlds. The concluding chapter discusses the design and implementation of sustainable development pathways, through the expression of consumers’ desire for sustainably produced foods on the demand side of the food system, and through policies on the supply side such as new more sustainable technologies, environmental regulation and payments for ecosystem services.

Agricultural Policy of the United States
Agricultural Policy of the United States

Author: Stephanie A. Mercier

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-04-01

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 3030364526

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This book serves as a foundational reference of U.S. land settlement and early agricultural policy, a comprehensive journey through the evolution of 20th century agricultural policy, and a detailed guide to the key agricultural policy issues of the early 21st century. This book integrates the legal, economic and political concepts and ideas that guided U.S. agricultural policy from colonial settlement to the 21st century, and it applies those concepts to the policy issues agriculture will face over the next generation. The book is organized into three sections. Section one introduces the main themes of the book, explores the pre-Columbian period and early European settlement, and traces the first 150 years of U.S. agricultural policy starting with the post revolution period and ending with the “golden age” of agriculture in the early 20th century. Section two outlines that grand bargain of the 1930s that initiated the modern era of government intervention into agricultural markets and traces this policy evolution to the early days of the 21st century. The third section provides an in-depth examination of six policy issues that dominate current policy discussions and will impact policy decisions for the next generation: trade, environment/conservation, commodity checkoff programs, crop insurance, biofuels, and domestic nutrition programs.

Food Security, Agricultural Policies and Economic Growth
Food Security, Agricultural Policies and Economic Growth

Author: Niek Koning

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-04-21

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 131762257X

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Using a political-economic approach supplemented with insights from human ecology, this volume analyzes the long-term dynamics of food security and economic growth. The book begins by discussing the nature of preindustrial food crises and the changes that have occurred since the 19th century with the ascent of technical science and the fossil fuel revolution. It explains how these changes improved living standards but that the realization of this improvement was usually dependent on government support for smallholder modernization. The author sets out how the evolution of food security in different regions has been influenced by farm policy choices and how these choices were shaped by local societal characteristics, international relations and changing configurations in metropolitan countries. Separate chapters are devoted to the interaction of this evolution with debates on food security and economic growth and with international economic policies. The final chapters highlight the new challenges for global food security that will arise as traditional sources of biomass production and the more easily extractable reserves of fossil biomass become depleted or can no longer be used. Overall, the book emphasizes the inadequacy of current explanations with regard to these challenges. It explores what is needed to ensure a sustainable future and calls for a rethinking of these issues; a necessary reflection in today's unstable global political situation.

Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2020
Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2020

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 9264748210

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This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies spanning all six continents, including the 36 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 13 emerging economies.