Valuing Agriculture: Balancing Competing Objectives in the Policy Process

In an era of increasing emphasis on free trade and market deregulation,
agricultural policy in advanced industrialized countries remains an
anomaly, with many countries continuing to intervene in markets
for farm produce. Since the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade
negotiations the scrutiny of these interventions has made clear that
governments have a range of objectives for their agricultural policies,
some unrelated to economic factors. Concern about the future of rural
communities, preservation of the countryside, the environment, food
safety and animal welfare goals feature to varying degrees in agricultural
policy settings. This paper explores the values influencing the formulation
of agricultural policy and proposes a policy map of the combination
of values reflected in particular policy settings. The map can give a better
understanding of why particular policy approaches emerge in some
polities and not others.