Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2015
The thesis of this article is that food and agricultural policy in the 1980s will be shaped by emerging economic, social, and political realities that are different from the realities which gave rise to policies and programs of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and which, modified, continued through the 1970s. The characteristics of this new policy environment include:
– A changed economic structure and character of United States agriculture, and thus a changed constituency with changed policy needs.
– The internationalization of U.S. agriculture with its favorable and unfavorable implications, but which imposes certain constraints and disciplines on domestic agricultural and food policy.
– The prospect of a new supply and demand “equilibrium” and the end of 60 years of adjustment to supply growing faster than demand.
– The new, broadened context within which agricultural policies and programs must be considered.