An economic analysis of the policies that affect agriculture, agribusiness, and trade in both Canada and the United States. The authors emphasize the role of farmers and business in the formation of policy.

The second edition of the groundbreaking Agricultural Policy, Agribusiness, and Rent-Seeking Behaviour expands upon its original analysis of the economic policies that affect agriculture and agribusiness. Widening their lens to include information on the European Union, the authors continue to emphasize the role of farmers and agribusiness in the formation of policy, exploring the issues from both economic and historical perspectives. More theoretical than the first volume in its discussions of welfare economics and the theory of public choice, the second edition also addresses the broad significance of agricultural policies such as biofuels, nutrition, multifunctionality, genetically modified organisms, and multinational firms. The authors maintain and expand the empirical content to provide more practical examples suited to teaching and analyse specific problems including price and income stabilization, science policy, environmental policy, and food quality and safety.

Costing billions of dollars annually, international trade in agricultural products is impactful and influenced by several factors, including climate change, food policy, and government legislation. The third edition of Agricultural Policy, Agribusiness, and Rent-Seeking Behaviour provides comprehensive economic analyses of the policies that affect agriculture and agribusiness in Canada and the United States. Looking at current agricultural policies, the third edition includes new chapters on food pyramids, climate change, and GMOs, while also highlighting the effect of international policies on Canadian trade, including the problematic US ethanol policy. The new edition addresses current issues, including how the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected agricultural value chains and played a hand in the ongoing growth in opioid use. Including a number of key findings, and discussing current debates on topics including foreign ownership of Canadian farmland, Agricultural Policy, Agribusiness, and Rent-Seeking Behaviour will appeal to students in agricultural economics and policy, as well as policymakers, agricultural firms, energy companies, and readers wishing to reduce their nation’s carbon footprint.

This book sheds light on the interaction between international agricultural trade and domestic foreign policy.

Understanding why agricultural policies of developed countries are what they are is critical on several accounts for the developed countries as a group and for individual countries. It is important because the inter-dependencies among national agricultural policies are so numerous, as illustrated by the ongoing agricultural trade confrontation between the United States and the European Community; confrontation that is vividly expressed in the current subsidy war between the two trading blocs. The stakes for developing countries are also very high because the domestic agricultural policies of these two giants have a considerable influence on the international markets of major agricultural commodities.Studying why policies are what they are is an important research issue: legitimate in its own right on scientific grounds and relevant for any institution dealing with agricultural policies. Thus, it is only fitting that an international research institute dealing with food policy should analyze developed country policies and actions. This book is a further development of a research report by Michel Petit, ``Determinants of Agricultural Policies in the United States and the European Community'', published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and is written by a team of eminent European scholars from a variety of organisations called together by Michel Petit and working under his leadership. Concentrating on the policy process in the European Community, this research provides useful insights on the influence of domestic, economic and political factors in shaping the positions of member countries in Community negotiations and on the process leading to a Community policy decision.

This book's purpose is to shed light on the threats and opportunities arising from the incentives and restrictions of governmental actions which food industry managers discover in their search for profits. The food industry, as defined here, includes farmers, their input suppliers, processors and distributors. This text explores how the private sector reacts to the stimulus of public support measures, rules and regulations which are usually motivated by entirely different ends than those desired within the private sector. No current single model of economic behavior as yet adequately encompasses or quantifies these complex vectors and forces. Management is comprised of many factors, most of which can be identified ex post but few of which can be appraised precisely ex ante. The perceptual processes by which managers respond to governments are influenced by culture, aptitudes, individual and collective goals. details of most government/business relationships are discussed Few openly since management and government officials are, understandably, often reluctant to share the decision tree route by which trust is built and understandings are negotiated. Our text differs from others in that we combine both a theoretical and experiential approach to the subject. The insights provided by the case study material give a more macro and yet realistic view than tha t usually offered elsewhere. We indicate the risks and dynamics of the situations faced by management while also showing the importance and strategic relevance of a solid analytical foundation for managerial purposes.