Agricultural policy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The agricultural policy is a subset of the general economic and social policy , the focus on the agricultural sector is aligned and associated with it industries and communities.

It can be defined generally and comprehensively as the totality of all efforts and measures aimed at shaping the regulatory framework for the agricultural sector and influencing the course of economic processes in the agricultural sector.

Agricultural policy in general is described below. The agricultural policies at the different levels are the subject of separate articles.

organization

Agricultural policy can be broken down into:

Policy fields:

State levels:

  • Agricultural policy at the international and supranational level ( WTO , OECD , FAO ; Common Agricultural Policy of the EU and in other economic associations).
  • Agricultural policy of the states
  • Regional and local agricultural policy

Actors:

  • State instances of the legislative and executive branches at the various decision-making levels (e.g. parliament, government, administration)
  • Semi-governmental bodies (e.g. chambers of agriculture )
  • Under certain circumstances private organizations and associations, provided that certain tasks are assigned to them by law or regulation.

Influencer:

These include a large number of organizations and associations that influence the process of political decision-making in various forms and in some cases with considerable weight. This includes, in particular, professional associations such as farmers' associations and other interest groups .

Design options

Basically, the following starting points for state influence can be distinguished:

The creation of legal and institutional framework conditions within which the economic process takes place ( regulatory policy ). In the area of ​​agricultural policy, regulatory policy relates in particular to:

  • The design of the legal framework for the individual agricultural companies and households (e.g. property and usage rights to land, inheritance law, labor constitution, social security, tax system, etc.)
  • The design of the legal framework for the relationships between individual companies (cooperatives, producer groups, cooperations, etc.).
  • The design of the legal and institutional framework for what happens on the product and factor markets (market regulations, lease law, agricultural credit institutions, etc.)

Influence on the course of the economic process under existing regulatory framework conditions ( process policy ). In the agricultural sector, the following are of particular importance:

  • Agricultural price stabilization and support through external protection measures (tariffs, levies) and internal market interventions (setting of minimum prices)
  • Product and factor-linked agricultural subsidies
  • Direct quantity control (allocation, quota)
  • Direct income transfers.

Takeover of certain activities by the state (provision of public goods). In the agricultural sector, state services are offered in the following areas in particular:

History of ideas

The history of ideas in agricultural policy begins with its predecessors in the 16th to 18th centuries. The first descriptions of the conditions on farms and practical advice for all areas of daily life emerged from the house fathers literature . However, economic issues are only dealt with marginally. In contrast to this, the cameralists viewed agriculture primarily from the fiscal side, i.e. from an economic point of view. German cameralism led to the promotion of the peasant class and domains as sources of income for the state. In contrast, mercantilism promoted trade.

In terms of intellectual history, the Enlightenment had an impact in the middle of the 18th century. Rationalism and physiocracy brought about liberalism and with it the classical school of modern economics through its founder Adam Smith . The basic idea of ​​economic policy is then no longer state promotion of the economy as in mercantilism, but rather the "unleashing" of individual economic subjects so that the productive forces of the economy can develop. This also applies in principle to agriculture, which does not occupy a special position here. On the other hand, Freiherr vom Stein advocated maintaining peasant protection and Friedrich List called for "educational tariffs" for German industry, but also said that industry should be promoted for the sake of agriculture. Romanticism had other basic ideas , which instead of the national idea put the focus on the individual. In terms of the history of ideas, it has its origin in the so-called fundamental theory, whose main proponent Justus Möser , an opponent of rationalism, sought a conservative popular renewal on a down-to-earth peasant basis (“Patriotic Fantasies”, 1787). In terms of the history of science, Möser made a fundamental contribution to later agricultural policy through his systematic, inductive work. There are connections to the economy insofar as the high esteem of the peasantry for socio-political reasons coincides with the economic ideas of the physiocrats. They were transformed by the Romantics (e.g. Adam Müller , Ernst Moritz Arndt ) into a peasant ideology, which sees free peasantry as the protector of basic values ​​for society as a whole.

At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, groundbreaking contributions were made to the development of agricultural and general economics: In 1806, following Adam Smith, Albrecht Daniel Thaer - the founder of agricultural management - developed his ideas of agriculture as a “net income “Aspiring business. Thomas Robert Malthus published his population law in 1798, David Ricardo his rent theory in 1817 and in 1826 Thünen's “The Isolated State in Relation to Agriculture and Political Economy ” appeared , a work that contains a foundation of microeconomic theory.

When the situation in agriculture deteriorated in the mid-19th century, the belief that liberal economic policies posed a threat to agriculture spread. The difficult situation of agriculture was understood as a social problem because of the prevailing social hardship. B. by Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl , who advocated a conservative, down-to-earth social structure in his “Natural History of the German People as the Basis of a German Social Policy”. The German farmers' associations and the Raiffeisen cooperatives were founded at this time. In 1879, with the introduction of grain tariffs, a policy of protection for agriculture was introduced, which gave it a special position based on agricultural ideologies ( interventionism ).

The general economists also began to get involved in social policy during this time and in 1872 founded the “Verein für Sozialpolitik”, which u. a. Investigations into the rural conditions take place. This socio-politically oriented school, also known as historical school - in contrast to the classic one - is associated with names such as Georg Hanssen , Wilhelm Roscher , August Meitzen , Johannes Conrad , Georg Friedrich Knapp , Buchenberger and Sering . Around the turn of the century, representatives of the protectionist agricultural policy and liberal economists such as B. Adolph Wagner , Gustav von Schmoller and Lujo Brentano a fundamental discussion about an agricultural or industrial state, which was later modified to the question of what kind of support should be given to agriculture.

There are different ideas in the socialist agrarian theories. While Marxism / Leninism saw small-scale farming only as a transition stage to industrially organized agriculture with large cooperative farms, the revisionists represented the special position of agriculture. According to this, small family farms are superior because agricultural production, unlike industry, is an organic process.

In Nazism finally agriculture was particularly encouraged as part of the self-sufficiency policy. The blood-and-soil ideology elevated the farmer to the nation's source of blood, see also Agriculture and Food in the German Empire .

With the introduction of the social market economy in the Federal Republic of Germany, there was also a fundamental discussion of regulatory policy in agricultural policy at the beginning of the 1950s. Two opposing views were represented: on the one hand, a liberal position with internal price stabilization and external free trade (neoliberal agricultural policy, represented in particular by Heinrich Niehaus ), and on the other hand, a protectionist orientation with considerable interventions in the market (main representative of this Direction was Heinz Haushofer ). After a lengthy political discussion, a decision was made in favor of a more protectionist orientation in agricultural policy, which was reflected in the market regulations that were then created for most agricultural products.

When in the mid-1950s it became apparent that agriculture needed to adapt strongly in the course of rapid overall economic growth, a controversial discussion arose about the need for structural change in agriculture and agricultural income disparity. Most scientific agricultural politicians considered a solution to the agricultural problems through market economy-driven adjustment of farms and an increase in factor productivity to be possible; In contrast, leading representatives of agricultural interest groups in particular considered permanent production and support measures to be necessary and desirable due to the natural and economic inferiority of agriculture. This discussion found an interim result with the passing of the Agriculture Act in 1955, which emphasized the need for support for the agricultural sector. In the course of time, however, the interpretation of the content of this law has been continuously adapted to the changing framework conditions and insights.

The fundamentally different views of the two schools of thought mentioned, however, still determine the general agricultural policy discussion today and lead to a juxtaposition of support and adjustment policies.

The ecology discussion is increasingly influencing the values ​​and position relationships in the field of agricultural policy; of agricultural dumping is criticized.

See also

literature

  • Feindt, Peter H. et al .: Sustainable agricultural policy as reflexive policy . Plea for a new discourse between politics and science. Edition Sigma , Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89404-556-2 .
  • Henrichsmeyer, Wilhelm; Witzke, Heinz-Peter: Agricultural Policy, Volume 1: Agricultural Economic Basics. Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-8001-2483-1 .
  • Hoering, Uwe: Agrarian Colonialism in Africa. Another type of agriculture is possible. (PDF; 980 kB), VSA, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 3-89965-248-7 (Hoering explains the complicated network of interests of the EU, USA, World Bank, agricultural corporations etc. and peasant movements, in which the future of smallholder agriculture is at stake , using the example of Africa)
  • Kirschke, Dieter; Weber, Gerald: Agricultural Policy . In: Beetz, Stephan et al .: Concise dictionary on rural society . Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-8100-3749-4 .
  • Ulrich Kluge : Forty years of agricultural policy in the Federal Republic of Germany (= reports on agriculture . Special issue, NF 202). 2 volumes, Parey, Hamburg a. a. 1989, ISBN 3-490-35215-7 .
  • Kröger, Melanie: The modernization of agriculture. A comparative study of the agricultural policy of Germany and Austria after 1945. Logos, Berlin 2006.
  • Münkel, Daniela : National Socialist Agricultural Policy and Everyday Farmers' Life . Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2001.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Study reveals lobby network of the German Farmers' Association. In: nabu.de . April 29, 2019, accessed May 18, 2019 .