IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/agribz/v24y2008i2p145-160.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Farm price and income policy: lessons from history

Author

Listed:
  • Luther Tweeten

    (Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, Room 235 Ag Admin, Ohio State University, 2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH 43210)

  • Carl Zulauf

    (Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, Room 235 Ag Admin, Ohio State University, 2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH 43210)

Abstract

U.S. farm commodity support programs encompass nearly three quarters of a century and three quarters of a trillion taxpayer dollars. One dividend from that effort is to learn lessons. Farm commodity programs have steadfastly maintained a primary objective of supporting the incomes of a relatively few producers of a relatively few commodities. Nonetheless, farm programs have not been static but have adapted to changing economic and political parameters. Changes in agricultural policy tend to coincide with extremes in the food supply-demand balance. Farm program income transfers leak from their intended beneficiaries to other asset owners. Economic rents, once institutionalized, retain political momentum that sustains the rents. The rise of pressure from the World Trade Organization to provide only non-market-distorting payments may challenge the continued viability of these lessons; however, the lessons also caution against discounting the extant political influence of the farm lobby. [EconLit N500, Q180]. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Suggested Citation

  • Luther Tweeten & Carl Zulauf, 2008. "Farm price and income policy: lessons from history," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 145-160.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:agribz:v:24:y:2008:i:2:p:145-160
    DOI: 10.1002/agr.20153
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/agr.20153
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/agr.20153?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Westcott, Paul C. & Price, J. Michael, 2001. "Analysis Of The U.S. Commodity Loan Program With Marketing Loan Provisions," Agricultural Economic Reports 34035, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Orden, David & Paarlberg, Robert & Roe, Terry, 1999. "Policy Reform in American Agriculture," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226632643, December.
    3. Fapri, 2007. "Economic Impacts of Not Extending Biofuels Subsidies," FAPRI-MU Report Series 42189, Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI).
    4. Michael J. Roberts & Barrett Kirwan & Jeffrey Hopkins, 2003. "The Incidence of Government Program Payments on Agricultural Land Rents: The Challenges of Identification," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(3), pages 762-769.
    5. Makki, Shiva S. & Tweeten, Luther & Gleckler, James, 1994. "Agricultural trade negotiations as a strategic game," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 71-80, January.
    6. Sullivan, John & Wainio, John & Roningen, Vernon, 1989. "A Database For Trade Liberalization Studies," Staff Reports 278178, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Huang, Kuo S. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2000. "Estimation of Food Demand Nutrient Elasticities from household Survey Data," Technical Bulletins 184370, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. Huang, Kuo S. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2000. "Estimation Of Food Demand And Nutrient Elasticities From Household Survey Data," Technical Bulletins 33579, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    9. Shiva S. Makki & Luther Tweeten & James Gleckler, 1994. "Agricultural trade negotiations as a strategic game," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 10(1), pages 71-80, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bazyli CZYZEWSKI & Adam MAJCHRZAK, 2017. "Economic size of farms and adjustments of the total factor productivity to the business cycle in Polish agriculture," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 63(2), pages 93-102.
    2. Bazyli Czyżewski & Andrzej Czyżewski & Łukasz Kryszak, 2019. "The Market Treadmill Against Sustainable Income of European Farmers: How the CAP Has Struggled with Cochrane’s Curse," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Soliwoda, Michał & Kulawik, Jacek & Góral, Justyna, 2016. "Stabilizacja dochodów rolniczych. Perspektywa międzynarodowa, Unii Europejskiej i Polski," Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo), Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development, vol. 3(172), January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahearn, Mary Clare & Collender, Robert N. & Diao, Xinshen & Harrington, David H. & Hoppe, Robert A. & Korb, Penelope J. & Makki, Shiva S. & Morehart, Mitchell J. & Roberts, Michael J. & Roe, Terry L. , 2004. "Decoupled Payments In A Changing Policy Setting," Agricultural Economic Reports 33981, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Chouinard, Hayley H & Davis, David E. & LaFrance, Jeffrey T. & Perloff, Jeffrey M, 2005. "The Effects of a Fat Tax on Dairy Products," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt60t1f3tn, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    3. Johan Swinnen & Alessandro Olper & Senne Vandevelde, 2021. "From unfair prices to unfair trading practices: Political economy, value chains and 21st century agri‐food policy," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 52(5), pages 771-788, September.
    4. Shapiro, Jesse M., 2005. "Is there a daily discount rate? Evidence from the food stamp nutrition cycle," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 303-325, February.
    5. Chouinard, Hayley H. & Davis, David E. & LaFrance, Jeffrey T. & Perloff, Jeffrey M, 2005. "Milk Marketing Order Winners and Losers," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt82q751hf, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    6. Rickard, Bradley J. & Gonsalves, Jana, 2006. "Examining Potential Changes in Nutrition: Recommendations and Implications for Specialty Crops in California," Research Project Reports 121617, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California Institute for the Study of Specialty Crops.
    7. Cremer, Helmuth & Goulão, Catarina & Roeder, Kerstin, 2016. "Earmarking and the political support of fat taxes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 258-267.
    8. Chambwera, Muyeye & Folmer, Henk, 2007. "Fuel switching in Harare: An almost ideal demand system approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2538-2548, April.
    9. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Hayes, Kathy J. & Margaritis, Dimitris, 2008. "Estimating demand with distance functions: Parameterization in the primal and dual," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 266-274, December.
    10. Tweeten, Luther G., 1999. "Trade, Uncertainty And New Farm Programs," Economics and Sociology Occasional Papers - ESO Series 28330, Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
    11. Fertő, Imre, 1999. "A Európai Unió közös agrárpolitikájának gazdaságtana II. A CAP politikai gazdaságtana [The economics of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, Part II. The political economy of CAP]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 813-822.
    12. Carpio, Carlos E. & Isengildina-Massa, Olga, 2009. "Measuring the Potential Economic Impact of a Regional Agricultural Promotion Campaign: The Case of South Carolina," 2009 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2009, Atlanta, Georgia 46729, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    13. Chantal Le Mouël & Anna Birgit Milford & Benjamin L. Bodirsky & Susanne Rolinski, 2019. "Drivers of meat consumption," Post-Print hal-02175593, HAL.
    14. Liaukonyte, Jura & Rickard, Bradley J. & Kaiser, Harry M. & Richards, Timothy J., 2010. "Evaluating advertising strategies for fruits and vegetables and the implications for obesity in the United States," Working Papers 126972, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    15. Alston, Julian M. & Mullally, Conner C. & Sumner, Daniel A. & Townsend, Marilyn & Vosti, Stephen A., 2009. "Likely effects on obesity from proposed changes to the US food stamp program," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 176-184, April.
    16. Rickard, Bradley J. & Gonsalves, Jana L., 2008. "How would compliance with dietary recommendations affect revenues for agricultural producers?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 422-433, October.
    17. Moss, Charles B., 2006. "Valuing State-Level Funding for Research: Results for Florida," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-15, April.
    18. Miroslav Verbič & Mitja Čok & Ana Božič, 2014. "Demand for food during economic transition: an AIDS econometric model for Slovenia, 1988-2008," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 277-295, June.
    19. Biing‐Hwan Lin & Steven T. Yen & Diansheng Dong & David M. Smallwood, 2010. "Economic Incentives For Dietary Improvement Among Food Stamp Recipients," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 524-536, October.
    20. Corinna Manig & Alessio Moneta, 2014. "More or better? Measuring quality versus quantity in food consumption," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 155-178, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:agribz:v:24:y:2008:i:2:p:145-160. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6297 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.