- Email: [email protected]
Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century
Technological Forecasting & Social Change 71 (2004) 543 – 547
Book review Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century L. Tweeten, S.R. Thompson (Eds.), Iowa State Press (a Blackwell Publishing Company), Ames, IA, 2002 The book puts forward elements of a ‘‘new agricultural paradigm’’ for the 21st century. So radical is the shift in underlying assumptions upon which agricultural assistance programs are based that an entirely new rubric is proposed. Contributing writers draw upon Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work describing shifts in undergirding scientifically based rubrics or ‘‘paradigms’’ that condition understanding, knowledge and human response patterns. Kuhn’s thesis contends that when a growing set of anomalies puts old and entrenched belief patterns into question, then a new disciplinary matrix must be summoned to provide a basis for explaining and justifying adjustments to the changed conditions. Explaining farm policy shifts and introducing a new paradigm for reconsidering them are what this book is all about. Readers wanting to get a grasp of how agricultural policy is out of step with the times and how it might be updated to contemporary realities will find this a valuable read. Hoping to influence farm legislation pending in Congress, the writers define a more realistic rubric for assessing subsidy programs. The political dynamics of powerful farm interests and interplay of arguments to continue, or to reject, federal handouts makes this book an excellent case study for government, public affairs and agricultural economist disciplines. Chapters describe sweeping economic changes over the past 70 years, which explain away outmoded theoretical foundations that once addressed urgent national needs. Images perpetuating agricultural dependency on government intervention—‘‘low agricultural incomes; not competitive with other sectors; not competitive with other countries; government needed to find markets; supply control necessary; border protection; surplus buying; state trading; export assistance’’—are explained away. The case is made for agricultural selfsufficiency, minimal governmental intervention, winding down subsidies and returning to freer market mechanisms. Triumphing on short-term considerations of public policy (their intended target), few features addressing longer-termed changes are mentioned. Every field and each discipline has its towering giants. Many of the standout agricultural experts are represented here. In the natural cadence of agricultural economists, up-to-date statistical elaborations and arguments support their views. Fine details, valuable to those technically concerned, may weary the average reader. The content is invaluable to agricultural policy makers—the audience for whom it may be primarily intended. Is anybody listening? Does anybody care? Is there a sense of indignation that can be engendered that helps bring a halt to perpetuating government give-aways? The authors insist
doi:10.1016/S0040-1625(02)00298-6
544
Book review
that ‘‘Billions. . . spent. . . on commodity programs could not be sustained politically without an uninformed and inattentive public.’’ What would it take to get taxpayers riled up and sufficiently angry to rise up and object to this political favoritism? Ripping into entitlement mentality and inequitable special benefits, the authors hope to raise indignation. Despite 1996 laws phasing out agricultural subsidies, the principal author complains that ‘‘government involvement in agriculture is as great as it has ever been. . . despite huge changes in the socioeconomic characteristics of US farmers and landowners.’’ Evading intent of the law, Congress continued to heap ‘‘emergency’’ relief on farmers. Conceding that politics, not economics, controls the debate, the authors make a concerted effort to fulfill that abandoned objective. Now, with the 1996 farm bill expiring in 2002, Congress seems determined not to discontinue but to enlarge farm supports. Virtually every stage in the US agriculture system has its hand out. Supports range from production subsidies and emergency bailouts, low cost crop insurance, import protection, to export subsidies. Commodity support programs, the authors assert, ‘‘have lost their justification. . . are neither equitable nor efficient. . . are now an exercise in politics rather than economics.’’ The writers rail against mushrooming agriculture support costs. Federal supports for farm prices and incomes from the 1930s to 2000 totaled US$561 billion (year 2000 dollars)— US$450 billion of it paid out since 1950! Congressional 2002 budgets provide US$73.5 billion in new spending over the next 10 years, on top of the US$128.5 billion of existing programs (excluding costs for agricultural research, trade and nutritional programs). The value of many indirect benefits is hard to calculate. Have all of these spendings helped? Not only do farm subsidies overcharge consumers and rip off taxpayers, a few huge producers reap most of the farm payments—a mere ‘‘0.2 percent of America’s population receive most of the benefits.’’ The writers object to continuing this form of ‘‘corporate welfare.’’ Commercial farm operators do not deserve taxpayer windfalls any more than other businesses. Circumstances of American farmers have radically changed and ‘‘agriculture is no longer the backward, noncompetitive sector it once was thought to be.’’ They dismiss ‘‘poor mouthing’’ invoked to justify continuing farm subsidies by revealing that farm households actually are better off than nonfarm households. Between 1930 and 1999, ‘‘per capita income of farmers increased from 40 percent of the average American to 117 percent,’’ they report. ‘‘Income per farm household averaged 6 percent to 17 percent above that of nonfarmer households in each of the years 1996 through 2000.’’ Presented another way, ‘‘farm operator household income averaged 115 percent of US average household income, and wealth averaged 174 percent of US average household wealth in 1998.’’ Yet, poverty notions continue to color agricultural policy considerations. Farm households, clearly, are doing considerably better than nonfarm households. Farm subsidies, initially intended as a short-term aid for small-scale impoverished farmers, are out of step with contemporary reality. The writers reveal that 150,000 commercial farms produce three-fourths of US agricultural output. A mere 263,000 of the 2 million farm households generate crop/livestock sales above US$100,000, although ‘‘comprising only 0.2 percent of the nation’s population accounted for 73 percent of the $15.2 billion total payments
Book review
545
to farmers in 1999.’’ Whatever the precise numbers may be, it is clear that a privileged few high-end operators reap the overwhelming share of federal largesse. The opening sentence in the book drives the point home: ‘‘Why so few can get so much.’’ If preserving the number of operating farm units is a goal of agricultural policy, it has been an abject failure. US farms plummeted from 6.5 million in 1933 to 2.0 million in 2000. Similar declines in farm numbers have been experienced in other countries. US farms declined ‘‘at a rate of 1.1 percent per year on average from 1980 to 1995.’’ Loss rates were higher elsewhere. Japan experienced a 2.2% annual decline, ‘‘despite economic support four times the US level (and) European Union with support rates nearly double the US lost farms at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the 1980–1995 period.’’ So much for those misleading arguments. What has caused family farm decline? Economic consolidation, endemic throughout all businesses, plays a key role. Small farms continue to be consolidated in larger units that can achieve economies of scale. Small family farms are high-cost and low-producing units. Bigger operations provide economies of scale, enhanced efficiency and greater productively, they maintain. Small family farms decline, just as neighborhood stores gave way to supermarkets. ‘‘Industrialization of agricultural production,’’ they conclude, means that farm operations should be considered ‘‘no different from other industries.’’ Agricultural subsidies over the past 60–70 years, the authors conclude, have been transposed into enhanced land values and made farmers ‘‘real estate-rich.’’ Seventy-plus years of farm supports have enhanced farmland values: ‘‘Farm real estate values climbed 15 percent despite the lowering of crop receipts by farm programs from 1996 to 2001.’’ Because sudden withdrawal of supports would cause agricultural land values to decline, the authors concede that interim steps easing shocks may be needed. Farmers working two jobs to make ends meet often is cited to justify farm subsidies. Farmers are not the only ones working two, or even three, jobs. Seasonal commitment to farming—not unlike those for educators, yacht brokers, resort workers, ski resorts and others—provide opportunities for secondary jobs. The mere fact that most farmers engage in nonfarm jobs negates other assertions that they know little else and have nothing to fall back on to sustain themselves. ‘‘Weekend warriors’’ who work off-farm weekdays and devote weekends to farming currently earn more nonfarm income than farm earnings. Hobbyists, part-timers farming to take advantage of tax benefits and others enjoying the amenities of farm living prompt authors to question why taxpayers should support these interests anymore than they would ‘‘subsidize other consumption goods such as yachts or pleasure cruises.’’ Pleas to ‘‘save the family farm and preserve its traditional values’’—self-reliance, independence, honesty, reverence, marital solidarity and obedience to laws—are questioned. Handouts, after all, undermine those very virtues. Taxpayer-provided bargain rates for crop insurance are cited as yet another abject failure. Farm operators with low risk typically do not buy the insurance. But the guarantees do promote riskiest farm operations that otherwise would not make it. Adding insult to injury, low-cost insured risks encourage more of the risky crops to be grown. Without this prop, significant amounts of land ‘‘would revert to grassland or forest,’’ the authors assert. The
546
Book review
writers ask why taxpayers should continue to dole out bargain rate insurance protection and direct ‘‘disaster’’ payments to farmers. Pestilence, draught, hail, flooding and other risks are inherent in nature’s caprice. Similar risks prevail in other businesses as well. The authors point out, ‘‘We don’t provide government payments to lottery players, Las Vegas gamblers, Wall Street plungers, futures market speculators, day traders, and small businesses.’’ The authors question why farm operators deserve being favored over other commercialscale businesses. Averaged over any 5-year period since the 1930s, the few high-end farmers earn returns on both capital and labor as favorable as those received by other economic sectors. The authors point out that ‘‘since 1970, rates of return on resources have averaged 3– 4 percent over all farm assets but 15–20 percent on large farms.’’ While 15% of US farms go out of business in 5 years, the writers compare this to ‘‘the dissolution rate of 40 percent in five years and 79 percent in ten years (for) all US businesses.’’ They further note that death or retirement accounts for most terminations, and only 10% involves foreclosures, while 15% of other US businesses dissolves because of financial failure. Describing these unjustified results ‘‘corporate welfare,’’ the authors object to singling out commercial farm operators for federal largesse. Little credit in advancing agricultural productivity is accorded to farm supports. Primary credit is given to technological advances supported by capital investment, farm consolidation and labor outmigration. Although not often considered ‘‘high tech,’’ agriculture probably ranks as the most technologically advanced of all economic pursuits! Technology enhancements improving agricultural productivity span at least 8000–10,000 years. The writers acknowledge that environmental considerations and land conservation, in their many dimensions, are becoming the new rallying points for increased farm subsidies. The authors are not unmindful of depredations posed by laissez faire—despoiling the global commons and failure to ‘‘internaliz(e) the real cost of externalities, for example, pollution.’’ Preserving rural landscapes and amenities of open lands have prompted governments to buy farmland outright, acquire easements to assure continued farm use, impose multiacre zoning, provide tax allowances, grant compliance awards and so on. The 2002 farm bills provide US$16–24 billion for water quality, wetlands, open spaces and marginal land retirements. The authors mention that ‘‘New Zealand was paving the way toward reform,’’ but do not make a great deal out of actions taken in a number of countries to terminate or to trim back government agricultural supports. Abandonment of agricultural subsidy programs got underway in a serious and sweeping manner in a few nations during the mid-1980s. New Zealand, in 1984, became the first nation to terminate farm subsidies. Abrupt termination of 30 production subsidies and export supports—not a gradual phasing out—was implemented. One-time ‘‘exit grants’’ were tendered to operators. Livestock price supports were cut, subsidies on capital and agricultural inputs were slashed, landowner tax benefits were pared, marketing board powers were curbed, wheat and poultry were deregulated and milk was partially deregulated. Government support payments that had amounted to over 30% of the value of production plunged to a mere 1%, which consisted mostly of R&D outlays. Fears that 10% of farms would go out of business were far off the mark. Only 1% did so. Surprisingly, the number of farm units in New Zealand has actually increased and the size of farms has shrunk following termination of commodity support programs. Since the mid-
Book review
547
1980s, the value of New Zealand’s farm output has increased by 40% (in constant dollar value)! Farm productivity that had been 1% before reform soared to 6% annually today. Agriculture share of GDP rose from the mid-1980s level of 14% to 17% today! Environmental benefits resulted from marginal land essentially used to collect subsidies being returned to open spaces. In addition, termination of fertilizer subsidies reduced overuse, thereby curbing runoff. Australia took similar actions in 1988. A few years later, Sweden—the usual pace-setting or ‘‘precursor’’ nation—followed suit. Sweden’s 1991 New Food Policy directed ‘‘immediate phasing out of internal price supports, intervention buying, and export subsidies.’’ For over a half century, Sweden has been the bellwether for innovative public policy responses to problems—the first nation to ‘‘test the waters’’ for novel and new undertakings. Tracking this phenomenon for thousands of discrete issues, this writer has never found a case where Sweden turned away from a response that was rational, just and ‘‘right.’’ I have noted situations where Sweden did recant when hoped-for results did not work out or ‘‘deliver the goods’’ sought. Now, I have encountered a situation where Sweden recanted due to pressures brought to bear by rules imposed by a regional supra-governmental authority, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. Sweden was compelled in 1993 to abandon public policy edicts terminating agricultural subsidy programs as a condition of their association with the European Union. All told, the book makes compelling arguments for phasing out inequitable and unjustifiable federal agricultural subsidies. The thin margin of congressional control, desires to retain or build power, and politics are bringing about different results. By the time this review is published, Congress will have committed the highest level ever for agricultural subsidies. Old ways are hard to reform. That does not mean one should stop trying. Graham T.T. Molitor Public Policy Forecasting Inc., 9208 Wooden Bridge Road, Potomac, MD 20854, USA E-mail address: [email protected] Tel.: +1-301-762-5174 6 May 2002
Book review Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century L. Tweeten, S.R. Thompson (Eds.), Iowa State Press (a Blackwell Publishing Company), Ames, IA, 2002 The book puts forward elements of a ‘‘new agricultural paradigm’’ for the 21st century. So radical is the shift in underlying assumptions upon which agricultural assistance programs are based that an entirely new rubric is proposed. Contributing writers draw upon Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work describing shifts in undergirding scientifically based rubrics or ‘‘paradigms’’ that condition understanding, knowledge and human response patterns. Kuhn’s thesis contends that when a growing set of anomalies puts old and entrenched belief patterns into question, then a new disciplinary matrix must be summoned to provide a basis for explaining and justifying adjustments to the changed conditions. Explaining farm policy shifts and introducing a new paradigm for reconsidering them are what this book is all about. Readers wanting to get a grasp of how agricultural policy is out of step with the times and how it might be updated to contemporary realities will find this a valuable read. Hoping to influence farm legislation pending in Congress, the writers define a more realistic rubric for assessing subsidy programs. The political dynamics of powerful farm interests and interplay of arguments to continue, or to reject, federal handouts makes this book an excellent case study for government, public affairs and agricultural economist disciplines. Chapters describe sweeping economic changes over the past 70 years, which explain away outmoded theoretical foundations that once addressed urgent national needs. Images perpetuating agricultural dependency on government intervention—‘‘low agricultural incomes; not competitive with other sectors; not competitive with other countries; government needed to find markets; supply control necessary; border protection; surplus buying; state trading; export assistance’’—are explained away. The case is made for agricultural selfsufficiency, minimal governmental intervention, winding down subsidies and returning to freer market mechanisms. Triumphing on short-term considerations of public policy (their intended target), few features addressing longer-termed changes are mentioned. Every field and each discipline has its towering giants. Many of the standout agricultural experts are represented here. In the natural cadence of agricultural economists, up-to-date statistical elaborations and arguments support their views. Fine details, valuable to those technically concerned, may weary the average reader. The content is invaluable to agricultural policy makers—the audience for whom it may be primarily intended. Is anybody listening? Does anybody care? Is there a sense of indignation that can be engendered that helps bring a halt to perpetuating government give-aways? The authors insist
doi:10.1016/S0040-1625(02)00298-6
544
Book review
that ‘‘Billions. . . spent. . . on commodity programs could not be sustained politically without an uninformed and inattentive public.’’ What would it take to get taxpayers riled up and sufficiently angry to rise up and object to this political favoritism? Ripping into entitlement mentality and inequitable special benefits, the authors hope to raise indignation. Despite 1996 laws phasing out agricultural subsidies, the principal author complains that ‘‘government involvement in agriculture is as great as it has ever been. . . despite huge changes in the socioeconomic characteristics of US farmers and landowners.’’ Evading intent of the law, Congress continued to heap ‘‘emergency’’ relief on farmers. Conceding that politics, not economics, controls the debate, the authors make a concerted effort to fulfill that abandoned objective. Now, with the 1996 farm bill expiring in 2002, Congress seems determined not to discontinue but to enlarge farm supports. Virtually every stage in the US agriculture system has its hand out. Supports range from production subsidies and emergency bailouts, low cost crop insurance, import protection, to export subsidies. Commodity support programs, the authors assert, ‘‘have lost their justification. . . are neither equitable nor efficient. . . are now an exercise in politics rather than economics.’’ The writers rail against mushrooming agriculture support costs. Federal supports for farm prices and incomes from the 1930s to 2000 totaled US$561 billion (year 2000 dollars)— US$450 billion of it paid out since 1950! Congressional 2002 budgets provide US$73.5 billion in new spending over the next 10 years, on top of the US$128.5 billion of existing programs (excluding costs for agricultural research, trade and nutritional programs). The value of many indirect benefits is hard to calculate. Have all of these spendings helped? Not only do farm subsidies overcharge consumers and rip off taxpayers, a few huge producers reap most of the farm payments—a mere ‘‘0.2 percent of America’s population receive most of the benefits.’’ The writers object to continuing this form of ‘‘corporate welfare.’’ Commercial farm operators do not deserve taxpayer windfalls any more than other businesses. Circumstances of American farmers have radically changed and ‘‘agriculture is no longer the backward, noncompetitive sector it once was thought to be.’’ They dismiss ‘‘poor mouthing’’ invoked to justify continuing farm subsidies by revealing that farm households actually are better off than nonfarm households. Between 1930 and 1999, ‘‘per capita income of farmers increased from 40 percent of the average American to 117 percent,’’ they report. ‘‘Income per farm household averaged 6 percent to 17 percent above that of nonfarmer households in each of the years 1996 through 2000.’’ Presented another way, ‘‘farm operator household income averaged 115 percent of US average household income, and wealth averaged 174 percent of US average household wealth in 1998.’’ Yet, poverty notions continue to color agricultural policy considerations. Farm households, clearly, are doing considerably better than nonfarm households. Farm subsidies, initially intended as a short-term aid for small-scale impoverished farmers, are out of step with contemporary reality. The writers reveal that 150,000 commercial farms produce three-fourths of US agricultural output. A mere 263,000 of the 2 million farm households generate crop/livestock sales above US$100,000, although ‘‘comprising only 0.2 percent of the nation’s population accounted for 73 percent of the $15.2 billion total payments
Book review
545
to farmers in 1999.’’ Whatever the precise numbers may be, it is clear that a privileged few high-end operators reap the overwhelming share of federal largesse. The opening sentence in the book drives the point home: ‘‘Why so few can get so much.’’ If preserving the number of operating farm units is a goal of agricultural policy, it has been an abject failure. US farms plummeted from 6.5 million in 1933 to 2.0 million in 2000. Similar declines in farm numbers have been experienced in other countries. US farms declined ‘‘at a rate of 1.1 percent per year on average from 1980 to 1995.’’ Loss rates were higher elsewhere. Japan experienced a 2.2% annual decline, ‘‘despite economic support four times the US level (and) European Union with support rates nearly double the US lost farms at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the 1980–1995 period.’’ So much for those misleading arguments. What has caused family farm decline? Economic consolidation, endemic throughout all businesses, plays a key role. Small farms continue to be consolidated in larger units that can achieve economies of scale. Small family farms are high-cost and low-producing units. Bigger operations provide economies of scale, enhanced efficiency and greater productively, they maintain. Small family farms decline, just as neighborhood stores gave way to supermarkets. ‘‘Industrialization of agricultural production,’’ they conclude, means that farm operations should be considered ‘‘no different from other industries.’’ Agricultural subsidies over the past 60–70 years, the authors conclude, have been transposed into enhanced land values and made farmers ‘‘real estate-rich.’’ Seventy-plus years of farm supports have enhanced farmland values: ‘‘Farm real estate values climbed 15 percent despite the lowering of crop receipts by farm programs from 1996 to 2001.’’ Because sudden withdrawal of supports would cause agricultural land values to decline, the authors concede that interim steps easing shocks may be needed. Farmers working two jobs to make ends meet often is cited to justify farm subsidies. Farmers are not the only ones working two, or even three, jobs. Seasonal commitment to farming—not unlike those for educators, yacht brokers, resort workers, ski resorts and others—provide opportunities for secondary jobs. The mere fact that most farmers engage in nonfarm jobs negates other assertions that they know little else and have nothing to fall back on to sustain themselves. ‘‘Weekend warriors’’ who work off-farm weekdays and devote weekends to farming currently earn more nonfarm income than farm earnings. Hobbyists, part-timers farming to take advantage of tax benefits and others enjoying the amenities of farm living prompt authors to question why taxpayers should support these interests anymore than they would ‘‘subsidize other consumption goods such as yachts or pleasure cruises.’’ Pleas to ‘‘save the family farm and preserve its traditional values’’—self-reliance, independence, honesty, reverence, marital solidarity and obedience to laws—are questioned. Handouts, after all, undermine those very virtues. Taxpayer-provided bargain rates for crop insurance are cited as yet another abject failure. Farm operators with low risk typically do not buy the insurance. But the guarantees do promote riskiest farm operations that otherwise would not make it. Adding insult to injury, low-cost insured risks encourage more of the risky crops to be grown. Without this prop, significant amounts of land ‘‘would revert to grassland or forest,’’ the authors assert. The
546
Book review
writers ask why taxpayers should continue to dole out bargain rate insurance protection and direct ‘‘disaster’’ payments to farmers. Pestilence, draught, hail, flooding and other risks are inherent in nature’s caprice. Similar risks prevail in other businesses as well. The authors point out, ‘‘We don’t provide government payments to lottery players, Las Vegas gamblers, Wall Street plungers, futures market speculators, day traders, and small businesses.’’ The authors question why farm operators deserve being favored over other commercialscale businesses. Averaged over any 5-year period since the 1930s, the few high-end farmers earn returns on both capital and labor as favorable as those received by other economic sectors. The authors point out that ‘‘since 1970, rates of return on resources have averaged 3– 4 percent over all farm assets but 15–20 percent on large farms.’’ While 15% of US farms go out of business in 5 years, the writers compare this to ‘‘the dissolution rate of 40 percent in five years and 79 percent in ten years (for) all US businesses.’’ They further note that death or retirement accounts for most terminations, and only 10% involves foreclosures, while 15% of other US businesses dissolves because of financial failure. Describing these unjustified results ‘‘corporate welfare,’’ the authors object to singling out commercial farm operators for federal largesse. Little credit in advancing agricultural productivity is accorded to farm supports. Primary credit is given to technological advances supported by capital investment, farm consolidation and labor outmigration. Although not often considered ‘‘high tech,’’ agriculture probably ranks as the most technologically advanced of all economic pursuits! Technology enhancements improving agricultural productivity span at least 8000–10,000 years. The writers acknowledge that environmental considerations and land conservation, in their many dimensions, are becoming the new rallying points for increased farm subsidies. The authors are not unmindful of depredations posed by laissez faire—despoiling the global commons and failure to ‘‘internaliz(e) the real cost of externalities, for example, pollution.’’ Preserving rural landscapes and amenities of open lands have prompted governments to buy farmland outright, acquire easements to assure continued farm use, impose multiacre zoning, provide tax allowances, grant compliance awards and so on. The 2002 farm bills provide US$16–24 billion for water quality, wetlands, open spaces and marginal land retirements. The authors mention that ‘‘New Zealand was paving the way toward reform,’’ but do not make a great deal out of actions taken in a number of countries to terminate or to trim back government agricultural supports. Abandonment of agricultural subsidy programs got underway in a serious and sweeping manner in a few nations during the mid-1980s. New Zealand, in 1984, became the first nation to terminate farm subsidies. Abrupt termination of 30 production subsidies and export supports—not a gradual phasing out—was implemented. One-time ‘‘exit grants’’ were tendered to operators. Livestock price supports were cut, subsidies on capital and agricultural inputs were slashed, landowner tax benefits were pared, marketing board powers were curbed, wheat and poultry were deregulated and milk was partially deregulated. Government support payments that had amounted to over 30% of the value of production plunged to a mere 1%, which consisted mostly of R&D outlays. Fears that 10% of farms would go out of business were far off the mark. Only 1% did so. Surprisingly, the number of farm units in New Zealand has actually increased and the size of farms has shrunk following termination of commodity support programs. Since the mid-
Book review
547
1980s, the value of New Zealand’s farm output has increased by 40% (in constant dollar value)! Farm productivity that had been 1% before reform soared to 6% annually today. Agriculture share of GDP rose from the mid-1980s level of 14% to 17% today! Environmental benefits resulted from marginal land essentially used to collect subsidies being returned to open spaces. In addition, termination of fertilizer subsidies reduced overuse, thereby curbing runoff. Australia took similar actions in 1988. A few years later, Sweden—the usual pace-setting or ‘‘precursor’’ nation—followed suit. Sweden’s 1991 New Food Policy directed ‘‘immediate phasing out of internal price supports, intervention buying, and export subsidies.’’ For over a half century, Sweden has been the bellwether for innovative public policy responses to problems—the first nation to ‘‘test the waters’’ for novel and new undertakings. Tracking this phenomenon for thousands of discrete issues, this writer has never found a case where Sweden turned away from a response that was rational, just and ‘‘right.’’ I have noted situations where Sweden did recant when hoped-for results did not work out or ‘‘deliver the goods’’ sought. Now, I have encountered a situation where Sweden recanted due to pressures brought to bear by rules imposed by a regional supra-governmental authority, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. Sweden was compelled in 1993 to abandon public policy edicts terminating agricultural subsidy programs as a condition of their association with the European Union. All told, the book makes compelling arguments for phasing out inequitable and unjustifiable federal agricultural subsidies. The thin margin of congressional control, desires to retain or build power, and politics are bringing about different results. By the time this review is published, Congress will have committed the highest level ever for agricultural subsidies. Old ways are hard to reform. That does not mean one should stop trying. Graham T.T. Molitor Public Policy Forecasting Inc., 9208 Wooden Bridge Road, Potomac, MD 20854, USA E-mail address: [email protected] Tel.: +1-301-762-5174 6 May 2002