In the late 2000s, corn prices rose rapidly and were closely followed by prices of other major agricultural commodities. A widespread explanation for these market changes is an increased demand for corn in the production of ethanol, prompted by the introduction of programs intended to encourage...

Over the past seven years, the U.S. government has been involved in trade negotiations that have led to one bilateral and two multilateral agreements whose provisions have substantive implications for U.S. agricultural trade. The first of these sets of trade negotiations led to the bilateral...

The 1996 Farm Bill, now known as the FAIR (Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform) Act of 1996, has been portrayed as reforming U.S. agricultural policy. Gone are set aside and base acreage controls over farm planting decisions. Gone, too, are deficiency payment programs that provided...

Market-oriented policy reforms have potentially important effects on farm-level grain production and utilization decisions in developing countries. This paper provides an empirical evaluation of the potential effects of market liberalization in China on farm-level wheat consumption, market...

Recent research has questioned the extent to which government policies, including conservation and risk management programs, have influenced environmental indicators. The impacts of income-supporting and risk management programs on soil erosion are considered. An econometric model of the...

Land degradation in most sub Saharan Africa is a widely recognized problem and is due in large part to poor land management practices. To address this problem, several policy-based incentives to increase the adoption of better land management practices have been proposed, including fertilizer...

Many low-income countries pursue cheap-food policies in which consumers pay subsidized prices for bread, rice and other staples. This paper addresses the issue of why different governments select different food subsidy policies, using multiple instruments rather than a simple across-the-board...