User:Skezmoh/Agricultural policy

The concerns of agricultural policies are very extensivefrom ensuring the hygiene of your salads to globalization management, and as time goes by, new concerns arise. However, the majority of the concerns fall into three categories: food supply for a growing population, livelihood insurance for farmers, and environmental protection. The theme of all approaches aiming to address these 3 types of concerns is to have a holistic view of their effects and externalities (a by-product of an action that affects others without their consent), because some policies intended to address one aspect of the concerns may have unintended harmful consequences that worse off other aspects while some have zero or even beneficial externalities. For example, subsidizing agricultural companies allows them to expand their industry and offer their products at lower prices to customers, but increases the firm's water and land usage which are at the cost of natural habitats. From an opposite perspective, if we protect the natural habitats and tax the agricultural firm for turning natural lands into factories, the prices of their products increase, making the firm's products no longer attainable to some customers. These externalities and trade-offs put the policymakers in a dilemma because our current global agriculture system is vulnerable to many disruptions such as weather changes, locality, manpower shifts, etc. Consequently, before we resolve this primary fragility of our agriculture system. It's of high cruciality for policymakers to weigh the trade-offs and adopt the most appropriate policies.

There are examples of the agricultural policy design mentioned above that are made by worldwide unions, countries, and states. While every specific situation requires its own specific agricultural policy design, these examples can provide useful models, insights, and lessons for future policymakers' reference and inspiration. The Common Agricultural Policy, published by E.U. , uses government subsidies to encourage food production and farming industrialization in its early stage. In some areas, food production boomed so much that enormous food waste became a new problem. With food waste, the market was thrown into imbalance. Consequently, the price drop cost the farmers' utility and has led to a future reform known as the Marsholt Plan. Marsholt Plan and following reforms generally adjusted the agriculture market back to balance. Later reforms managed to spread the fund to farmers and increase each individual farmers' welfare instead of merely expanding croplands and industries. Starting from 2003, the Common Agricultural Policy fund is further detailed into individuals and environmental protection is finally put into consideration.