Agricultural policy in Western Europe and the United States

Book abstract:

This volume provides an indispensable analysis of the development of agricultural policy in Western Europe and the United States. After providing a background to agricultural policy in the two regions, the authors focus on specific issues including: development policy and trade intervention up to 1930; a review of the major adjustments to agricultural policy in the world depression of the 1930s; agricultural adjustment and trade interaction between 1940 and 1973, including the enlargement of the EC, the formation of CAP and the foundation of GATT; an examination of the growth in agricultural protection of the 1980s and the effects of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations on trade conflicts; the EU's 1992 reform of CAP; and policy reforms in the 1990's in the US and Western Europe and the prospects for the future.

Much of the book is written both in a historical sequence and a historical context thus lending greater understanding to present day policies. Following an introductory chapter, most of those which follow are broadly divided into two sections, dealing with policy developments in Western Europe and the United States respectively. The later chapters also encompass developments in international relations, especially the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, which have increasingly obliged nation states to open their domestic agricultural policies to international scrutiny. The book concludes that although there continue to be substantial differences in agricultural policy between the EU and the US, they are diminishing as a result of a fundamental similarity of the forces pushing for reform and the harmonising effects of international negotiations.

Ken A. Ingersent is Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade and A.J. Rayner is Professor of Agricultural Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Nottingham.