Recognising the challenge facing policy makers who wish to design more precisely targeted policies, this study defines the operational characteristics of targeted policies and illustrates best practice with examples. It examines the relationship between target variables and objectives, implementation issues such as choice of instruments and support level, delivery mechanisms and levels of administration at which policies are implemented, based on examples of targeted policies implemented in OECD countries.
This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies. This year’s report focuses on policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and analyses the implications of agricultural support policies for the performance of food systems.
The agriculture, forestry, and fishing sectors are the cornerstone of industries that produce food, fiber, and biofuel. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducts research in order to improve worker safety and health in these sectors. This National Research Council book reviews the NIOSH Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Program to evaluate the 1) relevance of its work to improvements in occupational safety and health and 2) the impact of research in reducing workplace illnesses and injuries. The assessment reveals that the program has made meaningful contributions to improving worker safety and health in these fields. To enhance the relevance and impact of its work and fulfill its mission, the NIOSH Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Program should provide national leadership, coordination of research, and activities to transfer findings, technologies, and information into practice. The program will also benefit from establishing strategic goals and implementing a comprehensive surveillance system in order to better identify and track worker populations at risk.
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.
Agricultural Policy in the US: Evolution and Economics traces the foundation of US agricultural policy from its colonial roots to the present, using economic concepts to analyze and interpret political and economic consequences. Ancient Roman food and agricultural reform, English Corn Law and other historic examples of agricultural policies are included to show that agricultural policy has a long history and has been found necessary for governance throughout history. Processes employed to develop US agricultural policies, the structure and function of government that develops and implements agricultural policy, and the specific evolution of policy from the early twentieth century to the Agricultural Act of 2014 are included. Specific policies in past farm bills are detailed in order to track their evolution and economic effects. This textbook includes arguments for and against common tools of US agricultural policy. This debate continues today and can be seen in a gradual change over time from taxes and tariffs to risk management. Information presented does not attempt to influence the readership towards a pro or con position but rather to present information to help the readers to understand the issues related to agricultural policy in the US.
At the intersection of the growing national conversation about our food system and the long-running debate about our government’s role in society is the complex farm bill. American farm policy, built on a political coalition of related interests with competing and conflicting demands, has proven incredibly resilient despite development and growth. In The Fault Lines of Farm Policy Jonathan Coppess analyzes the legislative and political history of the farm bill, including the evolution of congressional politics for farm policy. Disputes among the South, the Great Plains, and the Midwest form the primordial fault line that has defined the debate throughout farm policy’s history. Because these regions formed the original farm coalition and have played the predominant roles throughout, this study concentrates on the three major commodities produced in these regions: cotton, wheat, and corn. Coppess examines policy development by the political and congressional interests representing these commodities, including basic drivers such as coalition building, external and internal pressures on the coalition and its fault lines, and the impact of commodity prices. This exploration of the political fault lines provides perspectives for future policy discussions and more effective policy outcomes.
The social protection system in Myanmar has remained at a rudimentary level for the past decade, with policies scattered and fragmented across various government departments, and serving only a fraction of the eligible population. The government allocated only 0.8 percent of its expenditure to social protection constraining its ability to expand to vulnerable groups leaving households to rely on informal forms of safety nets against idiosyncratic and covariate shocks, and life-course contingencies (Niño-Zarazúa & Tarp 2021). Only 13.8 percent of the population received any form of social protection according to the 2017 MLCS, leaving much of the poor, which is about one-third of the population, out of the scope of protection. After the military takeover in 2021, government provision of social protection faced a complete collapse with near zero allocation to the population (MAPSA 2022c). In the face of the double predicament of the COVID-19 pandemic and coup, any form of anti-poverty investment should effectively target the poor based on observable and verifiable characteristics. In this research note, we explore some promising indicators which can be used by implementing agencies to effectively target the poor. We use data from the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS) collected over the phone during July and August of 2022. The survey was conducted among 12,000 households in 310 townships of Myanmar. The MHWS is a nationally, urban/rural and state/region representative phone survey (MAPSA 2022a). The household survey questionnaire collected information on a wide variety of topics such as household composition, occupation, education, dwelling characteristics, assets, income, and agriculture.
