agricultural development
AEC 406
AGRICULTURAL DEVELPOMENT AND POLICY ANALYSIS
LECTURE ONE
1.0 Concepts
i) Agricultural
Production, consumption, markets for food and fibre system
ii) Policy
To understand and inform policymakers
To explain and predict policy choices ( political economy)
iii) Development
Changes (possibly improvements) over a long time horizon
It varies globally across countries.
1.1 What are policy choices in Agriculture? Policy can be broadly be defined as:
Actions of the government, as opposed to individuals
May be backed by police power
Having ‘no policy’ means using only voluntary arrangements.
Policy choices of the government include:
Institutions (written or unwritten rules and organizations)
Explicit: Quality certification
Implicit: Disaster victims (floods, famine, and drought)
Instruments (a particular action by those institutions).
Negative restrictions: a regulation, quota or tax.
Positive incentives: an offer to buy, sell or subsidize.
1.2 Historical Perspectives of Agriculture Development
I. Evolution, Agriculture and History
Life began to develop around 3.5 billion years ago in a solar system and on a planet formed 4.6 billion years ago in a universe.
The first to appear were plants, of which there are more than 500,000 species still living today, and then animals, which number nearly a million species.
The totality of individuals of a species living in a particular place at a given moment in time form a population of this species.
Humans are a much more recent species and not born to be farmers or stock-breeders.
They became so after hundreds of millions of years of hominization, that is, biological, technical, and cultural evolution.
It was only in the Neolithic era, less than 10,000 years ago, that humans began to cultivate plants and breed animals that they themselves had domesticated.
Subsequently, they introduced these plants and animals into all sorts of
AGRICULTURAL DEVELPOMENT AND POLICY ANALYSIS
LECTURE ONE
1.0 Concepts
i) Agricultural
Production, consumption, markets for food and fibre system
ii) Policy
To understand and inform policymakers
To explain and predict policy choices ( political economy)
iii) Development
Changes (possibly improvements) over a long time horizon
It varies globally across countries.
1.1 What are policy choices in Agriculture? Policy can be broadly be defined as:
Actions of the government, as opposed to individuals
May be backed by police power
Having ‘no policy’ means using only voluntary arrangements.
Policy choices of the government include:
Institutions (written or unwritten rules and organizations)
Explicit: Quality certification
Implicit: Disaster victims (floods, famine, and drought)
Instruments (a particular action by those institutions).
Negative restrictions: a regulation, quota or tax.
Positive incentives: an offer to buy, sell or subsidize.
1.2 Historical Perspectives of Agriculture Development
I. Evolution, Agriculture and History
Life began to develop around 3.5 billion years ago in a solar system and on a planet formed 4.6 billion years ago in a universe.
The first to appear were plants, of which there are more than 500,000 species still living today, and then animals, which number nearly a million species.
The totality of individuals of a species living in a particular place at a given moment in time form a population of this species.
Humans are a much more recent species and not born to be farmers or stock-breeders.
They became so after hundreds of millions of years of hominization, that is, biological, technical, and cultural evolution.
It was only in the Neolithic era, less than 10,000 years ago, that humans began to cultivate plants and breed animals that they themselves had domesticated.
Subsequently, they introduced these plants and animals into all sorts of