Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
1998
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Bridget Emmett D Boxman Michael Bredemeier Per Gundersen O. Janne Kjønaas Filip Moldan Patrick Schleppi Albert Tietema Richard F. WrightAbstract
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Mekjell Meland Kjersti SkjervheimAbstract
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Mekjell MelandAbstract
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Sjur Spildo PrestegardAbstract
In this note it is first shown that public intervention in agriculture may be desirable in the case of market failure. Then the focus is on objectives concerning income distribution, price and income stability. The note then focuses on the proposition that some of the conflicting views on agricultural policy between economists, politicians and countries, arise from a difference in the fundamental view on agricultural policy. Is agricultural policy basically seen as an income policy or social policy, or as an intervention to correct market failures in agriculture? I suggest that this difference in viewing agricultural policy, also influence views on which policy instruments to use. Economists (and politicians) who look upon agricultural policy as mainly an income policy or social policy, often speak in favour of decoupling support, i.e. that support not should be linked to production. This argument has a strong basis in economic theory. However, if the objectives of agricultural policy are regarded as mainly policy interventions to correct market failures, decoupling of support can not be seen as effective. If the objective is to maintain a public good such as the agricultural landscape, the support must be given to landscape maintenance (and this requires some agricultural activity). This implies that «a greening of policies» which intends to decouple support totally from agricultural production, will not be an effective policy. But «a greening of policy» by reducing tariffs and price support in favour of for example different forms of acreage support or support per head of animals, will be more efficient and less trade distorting. It is argued that this has to be taken into account in the forthcoming negotiations within the WTO on further agricultural liberalisation. To give purely income support, is the same as stating that the main reason for keeping an agriculture in that country, is to give farmers an income. In this note it is argued that it should be seen the other way round. To give farmers a decent income and standard of living can not be regarded as an agricultural objective in itself, it must be seen as a necessary condition for maintaining a national agriculture and thereby obtain other objectives (i.e. correcting market failures). If a society has as its main agricultural objective to secure the income of farmers compared to other groups in society, it can be argued that this could be done better through the regular tax and social system than as an integrated part of agricultural policy.
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Grete StokstadAbstract
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