The Common Agricultural Policy

The National Agro-Food policy has incorporated strategies that are in line with the nutritional aspects of the food system. The programs implemented under the policy include increased food production through optimization and sustainable land, development and upgrading agriculture infrastructure and increase the quality and safety of food by expanding the compliance of standard. Efforts have also been taken to strengthen human capital and to ensure sufficient skill labor force in the agricultural sector. This includes the use of modern technology and mechanization to reduce the dependency of manpower. The government also provides sector-based incentives to encourage the private sector to invest in the agriculture and agro-based industry.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers food assistance programs that help provide food for low to no income families. It is their goal to increase food security and reduce hunger by increasing access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education for low-income Americans (Caswell, 2013, para. 1). Some of the current nutrition assistance programs include “the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)”(Caswell, 2013, para. 1). SNAP will be the primary nutrition assistance program of the paper at hand. No matter how morally good it is to try to help reduce hunger and increase food security within the United States, there are still many questions regarding issues with SNAP. This paper will be discussing why there is such a strong support for the program, how it helps the United States as a whole, problems with the program, and why some people are against SNAP.

Agricultural subsidies is a very complex and controversial economic topic today. It will continue to be a hot topic as government continues it. It is largely debated in the United States as well as in other countries. The reason it is so largely debated is because it literally have an effect on the entire world market. Not to mention that the farm has been booming the last 5 to 10 years. This topic also tends to draw strong opinions in our area in particular due to the large agricultural community in our region. However, even within different states there are many supporters as well as opponents to these government subsidies.

A top few of the commodities are broilers, beef, eggs, peanuts, cotton, dairy, pecans, pork, timber, and many more things are grown. Throughout this article the author, Neil Hamilton, talks about why the Food policy and laws should keep the farm and farmers in mind. Should the law makers keep the farm and farmers in mind when making new laws and the food policy?

In the European union there are many different rules that you have to comply with to get one of them is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which attempts to rationalise farming and the production of food and other farmed produce, this is done by allowing subsides to be paid to farmers to grow certain crops, however money spent in the EU can not be spent on reliving unemployment, which is a major concern in all EU states.

The words to the famous old children’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” are due for a revision. The new lines should read “Old MacDonald had a farm . . . with a lawyer here, and an accountant there, and everywhere a new federal program and regulation.” Not quite as poetic, but definitely more appropriate. The current state of agribusiness consists of an incredibly complex mix of subsidies, price supports, and bureaucratic regulations that could confound the most knowledgeable business minds. Underlying this tangled web of rules and regulations are political battles that pit normally allied groups against each other, and bring normally adversarial groups into allegiance. One bizarre

In his paper, Pollan discusses the reliance on fossil fuels for agriculture, public health issues, and food security problems. He proposes policy that promotes alternative, local farming. Lyson describes a shift from craft to mass production, the consolidation of farms, and the disembedding of agriculture from the community. He discusses how civic economies challenge the market based agriculture system. Kloppenburg discusses how our current foodshed is built on a market economy and distances people from their food sources. Berry describes the problems of land consolidation, the industrialization of agriculture, and a culture of distancing people from farms. He proposes instituting more community based food systems. Although these authors discuss important economic, social, and environmental problems

The Farm Bill is a multi-year law that governs a multitude of food and agricultural industries that gives lawmakers the ability to address current concerns in the food and agricultural industry. “Since the 1930s, farm bills traditionally have focused on farm commodity program support for a handful of staple commodities such as corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, dairy, and sugar. Yet farm bills have grown in breadth in recent decades” (Johnson & Monke, 2017). The law has been able to help farmers over the years with crop and livestock loss, insurance and subsidies.

Despite the fact that agriculture engenders an insignificant percentage of the EU’s GDP and employs less than 5% of the EU native, the CAP takes up more than half of the EU budget. Additionally, knowing that the BRIC countries have become some of the most significant competitors to the EU, it has been suggested that payments to farmers should be decreased, thus concentrating more on the investment in technology. The distribution of the payments among nations has been highly doubted. We might believe that the CAP aids small family farms to prevent them from going into bankruptcy, yet this is a long way from the reality. A campaign, Famsubsidy.org, consisting of economists, activists and reporters, has been established to reveal the truth about the transparency of the CAP; the movement has found out that rich landlords and even “the British Royal family earn millions in EU farm subsidies”. As argued by Harvey: “Prince Charles and the Duke of Westminster are two of the biggest recipients of the aid in the UK”, hence a negligible amount is going to the poor farmers.

The Agriculture sector has changed monumentally over the past century in response to vast economic change and technological advancements. Farm subsidies are various forms of payments from the federal government put in place in an effort to stabilize prices, keep farmers in business, and ensure quality of crops. The federal government currently pays $20 billion in cash each year to US farmers and spent an estimated $250 billion between 1995-2005. Presently, a new farm bill is passed every five years

Agriculture was the most important economic activity in America from the founding of Virginia in 1607 to about 1890. Although farming declined rapidly in relative economic importance in the twentieth century, U.S. agriculture continued to be the most efficient and productive in the world. Its success rested on abundant fertile soil, a moderate climate, the ease of private land ownership, growing markets for farm produce at home and abroad, and the application of science and technology to farm operations.

In light of this, I would like to explore research frontiers in the area of the challenges of managing food and farm businesses in a global setting of the 21st Century. In our society beleaguered by agricultural problems that ranges from economic to environmental problems such as weather and global warming, issues concerning trade and management of agricultural enterprises has been the topic of debate for the past decade. Many developing/poor countries who earn their living from agriculture continuously suffer from poverty and hunger as a result of the increasing pressures on the world's resource base. Policymakers are gripped with finding solutions to problems such as structural and technological constraints, inappropriate domestic policies and an unfavourable external economic environment. As a result, the growth of these economies has been slow, undernourishment has been increasing and the marginalization of these countries in the global economy has continued. This trend has created problems for developing countries over the past decade. Economic and financial

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), is the most complex example of common policy in the European Union. Introduced from 1958 to 1968 and still in existence today, it has brought controversy, dispute and political tension within the EU and with the rest of the world. It is also a remarkable example of the movement toward the unknown realm of integration in Europe. However, subsequent reforms have been slow in arrival and have not always achieved the success expected of them. With the new difficulty of enlargement, challenges will require yet more reform of the CAP. The changing situations and context of the policy will be considered in terms of its effectiveness, as will the reforms of

When considering the challenges and opportunities posed by EU non market policies, we must look at both the food producer and the manufacturer as both can have positive and negative reactions. Going forward, global warming is now high on the agenda of policy makers. With agriculture a high contributor, it is unsurprising that measures are being introduced that have effect on the producers’ and manufacturers’. The buzz word now associated with the future of the environment and the food industry is “sustainability”. This refers to sustainable growth as the producers (farmers) try to maximise output. Moreover, with world populations set to dramatically increase up to 2050, the EU and the world must find ways to promote food production. Therefore, policies are now becoming more difficult and multifunctional. This is symbolised through the increasing awareness of the environment and it becoming more and more apparent in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). “The industry realises the need to protect and, where possible, improve biodiversity. Given that the industry’s raw materials are grown in the natural environment, and the industry purchases and processes 70% of EU agricultural production, it is essential that agricultural practices are sustainable.” FoodDrink Europe. (2011). It is here in the CAP that I have found non-market policies to have impacted both positively and, at times, negatively on the food producers and manufacturers operating in the EU. The

Political factors impact the agricultural sector in factors relating to regulation, distribution, and consumption of foods in a given country. Government policies and imposed regulations have a direct effect on nutritional choices that a consumer makes, and this, in turn, affects the agriculture market (KPMG, 2012). For example, policies governing food prices or the amount of information that a consumer will receive affects the choice of the consumer. Food regulation and safety measures implemented influence the supply of food products, and ultimately determines the market choice for consumers (KPMG, 2012). Economic factors have a direct effect on the agricultural industry. On one hand, the input cost such as the price of seeds, fertilizers, and cost of labor affect the productivity of the industry. The economic status of a country also affects the industry’s productivity. For example, in developing countries, the agricultural sector is less developed owing to limited resource input and poor infrastructure (KPMG, 2012).