16 Government and the Politics of Agriculture: An International Comparison
Deanna Behring; Ram Chandra Neupane; Olanrewaju Shittu; and Hazel Velasco Palacios
Learning Objectives
At the end of the chapter, students will be able to:
- Explain how a country’s political history and philosophy shapes its agriculture institutions.
- Explain how a country’s political history and philosophy shapes its agriculture policies.
- Compare different country histories in the context of the global agriculture system.
Definitions
While some of these definitions may be familiar to you from your previous coursework, it may be helpful for you to review them in the context of agriculture. Although in many cases we are adopting the standard “western” definition of many of these terms, note that in other cultures, including indigenous cultures, these words may be interpreted and applied differently.
- Politics: The word we use today is of Western Greek origin, polis, meaning “city,” and politikos, meaning “of citizens and pertaining to the state and its administration.”
- Political Science: The theory and practice of politics and the analysis of systems and political behavior. Political science is usually divided into three subcategories: political philosophy, comparative politics, and international relations.
- Physiocracy: From the Greek word meaning “government of nature” and based on the economic theory that the wealth of nations derives from the value of “land agriculture” or “land development” and thus agricultural products should be highly valued.
- Natural Law: System of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.
- Social Contract: An implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits. An example is sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection.
- Land Tenure: Land tenure is the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual who is said to “hold” the land. It determines who can use land, for how long, and under what conditions. Tenure may be based both on official laws and policies and on informal customs.
Introduction
In this chapter, we briefly review the history and philosophical underpinnings of the United States of America before turning to examine similar questions in three other countries: Nigeria, Nepal, and El Salvador. Note that we begin our discussion with the founding of the United States in 1776, which does not do justice to the peoples and nations that were previously on the land now known as the United States and were forced to leave, assimilate, or be annihilated.
History and Philosophy of the United States
In mid 1700s, settlers in the Americas started thinking about creating their own nation and system of self-governance. Many of the influential philosophers of the time found inspiration in the ideas put forward during the European Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason, including the concept of separation of powers (Baron de Montesquieu) and theories of natural law and the social contract (John Locke).
Key ideas that were part of the foundation of the United States include the following:
- The ability to reason is what makes humans unique.
- Problems can be solved by using reason instead of superstition, ignorance, or unfair government.
- The natural world is governed by laws that can be discovered by reason.
- Like the natural world, human behavior is governed by natural laws.
- Government should reflect natural laws and encourage education and debate.
The Declaration of Independence reflects many of these concepts:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Of course, the interpretation of “all men” has been debated. Although most people interpret “all men” to mean humanity, others have argued that Jefferson and the other authors meant to exclude women and children as well as African Americans.
Learn more the thinkers who shaped the philosophical underpinnings of the United States on YouTube.
The Founding of the United States
In the late 18th century, the seven men we now refer to as the “founding fathers” led the creation of the United States by overthrowing British rule and establishing their own nation guided by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the related Bill of Rights. The seven “fathers” include names with which we are all familiar: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Two of these founders went on to lead the first two political parties of the new country: the Federalists (led by Alexander Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republicans (led by Thomas Jefferson). The process of ratifying the Constitution ushered in a debate between these two political parties. The debate centered on how powerful the federal government and individual states should be. The debate captured the importance placed to agriculture in the formation of our country’s institutions and policies, with Hamilton advocating for more resources dedicated to the commercial sector of the country and Jefferson favoring an agrarian-based society.
Alexander Hamilton—Leader of the Federalists–Strong national government/executive
–Commercial activity/global markets
–Strong military
Thomas Jefferson—Leader of the Democratic-Republicans
–States’ rights
–Agrarian ideal
–Legislative primacy/military as tyranny
For all the successes of the founding fathers, they failed to address two key aspects of the times and to reconcile their philosophies with reality. Although the federal government had outlawed the slave trade in 1808 and prohibited expansion to the Northwest Territory, slavery was deemed a states’ right and persisted in southern states east of the Mississippi, where the slave population swelled dramatically from 1775 (500,000) to 1860 (4 million) on the eve of the Civil War. Similarly, although Washington developed a policy to treat the Native American indigenous peoples as sovereign nations within the United States, the resources to do this were never allocated, rendering this approach sorely inadequate and a lasting legacy of failure.
Note: Although most history books focus on the founding fathers, several women, most notably Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and Mercy Otis Warren, played important leadership roles during this timeframe as well. Adams, a strong first lady, was an advocate of women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. Madison is remembered for rescuing priceless artifacts from the White House but also for elevating social and charity work as important leadership roles played by the Executive. Warren was one of the first American women to write for the public on issues related to the American Revolution.
Early Agricultural Institutions
Two examples of the importance of agriculture in the early United States include the formation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the creation of the land-grant university system.
The formation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Founded by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 and nicknamed “the people’s department,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was designed to serve a country where 50% of people lived on farms (compared to 2% today). But the philosophy has remained the same: that is, that the foundation of democracy is based on everyone’s equal access to land and the products of agriculture. According to the USDA website, the vision of the governmental agency today is “to provide economic opportunity through innovation, helping rural America to thrive; to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans while also helping feed others throughout the world; and to preserve our Nation’s natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved watersheds, and healthy private working lands.”
The creation of the land-grant university system. Also signed into law by President Lincoln in 1862, the Morrill Act gave each state in the union the right to sell public land provided that proceeds were used to establish educational institutions to teach agriculture and the engineering arts. Seen as a way to educate a greater proportion of the population in applied sciences, these universities were nicknamed the “people’s universities.”
Note: The Morrill Act had severe repercussions for indigenous lands that you can explore on YouTube. Moreover, the issue of black and white segregation meant that there was a second Morrill Act in 1890, establishing land grants for black students. Learn more here.
The establishment of these two agricultural pillars during a critical time in our country’s history created a firm partnership between the political leadership of the United States and the farming and university communities in agriculture. We explore how this partnership was critical to the World War efforts and has influenced U.S. foreign policy later in this chapter.
Plantation Agriculture and Politics
Even though “right to property” was a basic tenet of the political philosophy of the United States, not all living in this country had a right to own property. Through the early 20th century, the agricultural system was dominated by slavery, tenancy, and share cropping, particularly in the South where large plantations produced massive quantities of tobacco and cotton. Moreover, agricultural policy focused primarily on educating farmers, supporting agricultural research, and implementing some tariffs and regulations; it exerted little direct influence on prices or production decisions (Winders, 2009). The Wheat Belt and Corn Belt producers were fine with this laissez-faire agricultural policy apparatus.
Much of this began to change, however, with the Great Depression and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) in 1933. During the Depression, overproduction, falling prices, and declining income hit the agriculture industry particularly hard. Between 1926 and 1933, for example, cotton prices fell by 50% and wheat exports declined by 80% (Winders, 2009). In response, the federal government intervened in the market by imposing price supports and restricting the production of agricultural commodities. In the case of cotton, for example, the government paid $200 million to farmers to plow under portions of their crop, causing production to plummet from 13 million bales in 1933 to 9.6 million in 1934 (Winders, 2009). Other AAA policies began to slowly erode the plantation system in the South, undermining the bloc’s political influence in agriculture policy development and in politics in general. In particular, subsidies that encouraged wage labor, along with policies that encouraged the diversification of cropping systems, meant that the social fabric of the South started to unwind and a mass migration of black Americans left the south for the cities of the north.
Dubbed the “Great Migration,” this mass migration of blacks out of the rural south into the northern cities of the United States increased blacks’ political power as they could more readily organize. Hence, these agricultural policy changes also converged with the Civil Rights Movement.
Modern Politics and the Farm Bill
It is important to note that the first AAA in 1933 was ruled unconstitutional because of its tax structure and infringement on states’ rights. Subsequent acts addressed these issues. Today the AAA is known commonly as the Farm Bill. Negotiated every five years, the Farm Bill, which emerges from political debate involving both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government, outlines the agricultural policy of the United States. The Farm Bill has evolved over time to include “titles” that illustrate new priorities related to the food and farming system. In addition to offering traditional support for farmers, the Farm Bill now includes titles on a variety of issues. The Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, for example, has 12 titles: Commodities; Conservation; Trade; Nutrition; Credit; Rural Development; Research, Extension and Related Matters; Forestry; Energy; Horticulture; Crop Insurance; and Miscellaneous. (Note that the Agriculture Committees in the U.S. Congress are some of the oldest in our legislative branch, dating back to the 1820s.)
A full list of the Farm Bills since 1933 can be found via the National Ag Law Center.
Global Impact of U.S. Agriculture Policy
While the Farm Bill has had a widespread impact on domestic agricultural production, U.S. agricultural policy has also been influential in the global food system, particularly through its food aid programs. The two most significant policies are the European Recovery Program (commonly known as the Marshall Plan) and PL480.
The Marshall Plan. The notion of food aid originated with the Marshall Plan in 1948 when the United States sent industrial and agricultural support to Europe to help it recover from World War II. Initially, the United States sent shipments of commodities (wheat, corn, and meat) for immediate recovery, boosting exports ninefold between 1945 and 1949 (Winders, 2009). Assistance eventually shifted to agriculture infrastructure support that helped with the rebuilding of European agriculture. With European agriculture largely restored by 1954, U.S. exports declined and pressure to find new outlets for U.S. production surpluses mounted.
PL480. The two decades after World War II saw a tremendous process of decolonization during which 45 new countries were formed and gained independence. The U.S. agriculture community saw an opportunity for new markets and meeting its geopolitical goals while also assisting these new countries to meet their food needs. PL480 was designed to sell U.S. commodities, especially wheat, at “concessional” or low prices to “friendly” nations. In exchange, those countries’ currencies were placed at the disposal of the U.S. government to use for a range of development projects in their countries.
The Farm Bill and these policies have had and continue to have a huge impact on countries around the world. For example, before PL480, Colombia produced 75% of its own wheat, but by the mid-1960s, two-thirds of its wheat was imported (Winders, 2009). Today, cotton supports in the U.S. Farm Bill distort global prices and drive developing countries out of business. You can read more about this in the international trade chapter and discussions on the World Trade Organization.
Country Comparison
We now turn to examine how histories and philosophies have shaped agricultural institutions and policies in three countries: Nigeria, Nepal, and El Salvador.
Nigeria
How would you describe agriculture in your country? How is your country’s agriculture system unique?
Nigeria’s agriculture system is comprised of different agroecological zones. The diversity in the agroecological zones makes the cultivation of different types of crops possible. The main crops cultivated in the country include maize, guinea corn, cassava, yam, beans, millet, and rice. In addition to crop production, there is livestock production across the country, but the ruminant animals (cow and goats) are mostly raised in the northern part of the country. Finally, there are fishery and aquaculture activities in the nation. Most wild catch fishing is done in the coastal regions and areas with inland waterbodies. Aquaculture has become enterprising in the country and is done in any location where there is water supply. Though Nigeria is blessed with various agricultural activities that makes the production of different types of agricultural produce possible, the country is yet to be food self-sufficient.
What historic events have shaped your country’s agriculture institutions?
Before the arrival of British colonists in Nigeria, most of the farming in country was subsistence. Each family was usually able to cultivate their own food; any surplus from their farms was used for barter system. After the British colonized the country, they made growers switch from the production of food crops to raw materials and/or cash crops, which were used for the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Even after Nigeria gained independence in 1960, there were administrative frameworks and tariff structures that favored the continuous production and export of raw materials to Europe. To date, Nigeria has not been able to achieve the level of food self-sufficiency it had in the pre-colonial era. Another factor that has impacted the agriculture sector was the discovery of crude oil in 1966. Since then, the nation’s economy has heavily relied on crude oil for revenue, consequently shifting attention and investment away from agriculture.
What political issues are most pressing for the future of agriculture in your country?
Lack of continuity in agricultural policies when there is a change in administration. The political parties usually have different agendas. So, irrespective of the progress an agricultural policy has made before a change of power, the probability that the policy will continue to the funded is very low. This lack of continuity has not allowed for significant growth in the agricultural sector of the country. To solve this problem, I would suggest there be a law that ensures continuous funding of each agricultural policy for its lifetime, irrespective of change in administration.
Note: To learn more about Nigeria, check out the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ country page and this blog on how Nigeria’s agricultural practices have developed over time.
Nepal
How would you describe agriculture in your country? How is your country’s agriculture system unique?
Subsistence farming dominates Nepalese agriculture. More than 66% of the total population in Nepal is engaged in the agriculture sector. Agriculture contributes one-third of the nation’s GDP. Nepal has a highly diverse ecology and topography consisting of fertile plains in the south and high mountains in the north. One of the key features of Nepalese agriculture is that the majority of smallholders have livestock-based farming systems. Nepal is rich in biodiversity and produces a wide range of crops, including cereals, pulses, oilseed crops, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other cash crops throughout the country.
In the fertile flat plains of the south, also known as Terai, a cereal-based farming system is predominant. This region is also called the breadbasket of Nepal. In the hilly area, growers practice horticulture-based farming systems. Cereals cultivated in this region are rice on wetlands and maize and millet on dry lands. Additionally, potato is the major winter crop in this region. The upper limit of cultivation in the Himalayan region is 4200 m in elevation. Major crops of this region are buckwheat, barley, and potatoes. The high Himalayan region of Nepal is primarily rocky and snowy. This region has minimal agricultural activity.
In Nepal, various types of crops requiring multiple weather conditions can be grown simultaneously because of the climatic variation within small geographical areas. This is a unique feature of Nepalese agriculture.
What historic events have shaped your country’s agriculture institutions?
There have been many events, plans, and policies shaping Nepal’s agricultural institutions. Some major events were the establishment of the Agricultural Council in 1937. This focused on colonial-era modern agricultural development. Different five-year plans have been created since 1956, when agriculture was identified as a top priority for the development of Nepal. In 1964, the Land Act was passed, focusing on individual rights to the land and land reform. However, there has been less focus on the commercial use of agricultural land and its productivity.
The Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS) was started in 1957, a milestone for agriculture education in Nepal. IAAS is an autonomous academic institute of Tribhuvan University for higher education in agriculture, animal sciences, and veterinary sciences. Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU) was established in 2010. AFU is the first technical university in the country. AFU was established in the land-grant model and mandated agriculture education, research, and extension. In 2016, the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP) was launched to commercialize and modernize the agriculture system.
What political issues are most pressing for the future of agriculture in your country?
In Nepalese society, the right to land is an important aspect of identity. Access to land, security of tenure, and the capacity to use land productively and sustainably are critical issues in Nepalese agriculture. Sadly, many agricultural households in Nepal do not own land. Landownership is concentrated in the hands of a few elites. Land reform, therefore, is a critical issue the current political leaders should work on for the overall development of the agriculture sector of Nepal. In addition, haphazard urbanization and the use of agricultural lands for commercial purposes are shrinking the agricultural land day by day.
Farmers face challenges accessing agricultural inputs such as good quality seeds, machinery, and fertilizers in a timely fashion. For example, fertilizer shortage has been a major problem every crop season over the past several years. This is a primary political agenda item in every election in Nepal, but the issue has remained as it is for the past few years.
El Salvador
How would you describe agriculture in your country? How is your country’s agriculture system unique?
With moderately high secondary-school enrollment rates, adult literacy, and access to electricity, El Salvador is a medium-income country with relatively low malnutrition rates (Food Export Midwest USA & Northeast, 2022; IFAD, 2018). Throughout the centuries, El Salvador’s political economy has transformed from an agrarian to a service-based and nontraditional agricultural and industrial economy. This transition has been primarily driven by disproportionate land distribution and enclosure of the commons, which has favored commercial agriculture and left many rural people without access to land and resources.
In spite of this, around 35% of the population lives in rural areas. Approximately 87% of Salvadoran farms are owned by smallholders. On a national level, these 87% of smallholder farms account for around 4% of net agricultural income. Corporations only account for 1% of farms and 70% of agricultural income. While corporations focus primarily on crops such as horticulture and sugar cane, small farmers concentrate on grains such as maize, beans, and rice. However, El Salvador’s agricultural exports are dominated by coffee, which accounts for about 30% of the country’s GDP (IFAD, 2018).
What historic events have shaped your country’s agriculture institutions?
The economic and political landscape of El Salvador changed dramatically during the latter half of the nineteenth century. At that time, El Salvador and other Latin American countries experienced a major agricultural export boom due to an increase in foreign investment capital, declining overseas shipping costs for bulk commodities, and a robust European coffee demand (Winson, 1978). The coffee industry developed in each of these nations at a rate unprecedented in the history of each. With the explosion of coffee exports, production and markets were reorganized, not only in the regions that had eco-friendly growing conditions for coffee but also in the hinterlands, where staples (such as maize and beans) were produced and migrant labor was available (Kauck, 1988).
In spite of the coffee boom’s transformation, El Salvador’s political landscape did not change uniformly. During the subsequent 30-year period, the country experienced severe repression in rural areas. However, the struggle for land only intensified in the 1950s and 1960s with the expansion of cotton and sugarcane cultivation, which led to waves of small farmers’ dispossession. In this period, land scarcity was exacerbated by overwhelmingly rural population growth. As a result, smallholders were forced to supplement their income with seasonal off-farm labor and continue a significant livelihood transformation. This created a class and peasant struggle and resulted in a civil war that started and ended with two incomplete agrarian reforms and the adoption of a neoliberal economy based on agricultural modernization and peasant integration into global markets.
For smallholder farmers in the region, producing for the household and selling a small surplus on the market ceased to be a feasible strategy (Montero, 2022). Growing numbers of small producers and landless opted to leave instead of voicing their rejection of nonmarket, political approaches to resolve their difficulties. Instead, their lack of options pushed them to abandon agriculture, the rural zones, and the organizations that once led the struggle to defend peasant interests and livelihood. Conditions for smallholders deteriorated, particularly for producers of basic grains and coffee. Peasant organizations’ work was adversely affected by migration from the countryside, which changed rural households, cultural expectations, and political aspirations (Salvador & van der Borgh, 2000). Moreover, smallholder farmers were devastated by the implementation of the DR-CAFTA, with few benefiting and several facing ruin due to increased competition, just like what happened in Mexico with NAFTA. Neoliberal globalization and other elements of Central America’s new economic model exacerbated the precarious position of smallholder basic grain producers (Montero, 2022).
As a result of neoliberal globalization, state development banks, extension agencies, and commodity boards were privatized. Neoliberal globalization also involved defunding public-sector agronomic research, especially that on small-scale, hillside, and sustainable agriculture (Kowalchuk, 2003). As the state’s participation is diminished, giant corporations implement concentration and vertical integration processes to increase their agricultural trade control. The reduced role of the state is translated into the reduction or elimination of tariff protections and the disappearance of subsidies (for credit, crop insurance, support prices, inputs, and technical assistance), which significantly affect the ability of the remaining smallholders to participate in the market.
What political issues are most pressing for the future of agriculture in your country?
Some of the pressing issues for the future of agriculture in El Salvador are:
Obtaining accurate and updated data on the agriculture sector. There have been only four agricultural censuses in the country’s history, three of which were before the 1990s; the fourth and last census was in 2008. Moreover, there are some significant concerns about how data was collected and reported; more specifically, in the census official report, the section on methodology clearly states that some significant discrepancies for several vital parameters (without specifying those to which they are referring) were found during the post-assessment of the census. This is important because any initiative, even the most well-intended, is likely to present severe biases and flaws without the correct information and facts.
Furthermore, El Salvador urgently needs an inclusive revitalization of the agricultural sector. There is a notion that the agricultural sector is minimal in a country marked by manufacturing and predominantly urban areas. However, in the case of El Salvador, the agricultural sector is an important (if not the most important) driver in rural areas that have been historically neglected and are expected to face significant challenges in the following decades due to climate change.
In this vein, this revitalization and policies that support it need to be inclusive. Because even the few pre-existent reforms and initiatives have systematically obviated disenfranchised groups like women, youth, indigenous, and other populations that are key to sustaining rural settings.
Finally, agricultural policies need to be in place to provide farmers, especially small farmers, access to the necessary resources and safety nets, like crop insurance and climatic-smart technology, that allow them to face the challenges ahead. It also needs to be more substantial support for farmers’ organizations. Grassroots organizations have proven to be places where people in vulnerable positions can face structural challenges and discrimination more effectively than individual efforts.
So, in short:
- El Salvador needs access to accurate and updated data on the agriculture sector.
- Rural matters and public budgets and policies need to reflect this.
- Policies need to be inclusive and sensitive to historically marginalized groups by gender, age, race, ethnicity, civil status, etc.
- The agricultural sector needs to be better prepared for future external shocks like climate change; access to resources and safety nets are essential in this endeavor.
- Grassroots or farmers’ organizations must be supported through training and commercial trade protections.
Acknowledgements
Most of the information used in this chapter is open source and links to videos have been embedded. A special thank-you to Hazel, Lanre, and Ram, all of whom are graduate students at The Pennsylvania State University and enrolled in the International Agriculture and Development dual-title degree program.
References
Food Export Midwest USA & Northeast. (2022). El Salvador Country Profile. https://www.foodexport.org/export-insights/market-and-country-profiles/el-salvador-country-profile
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). (2018). El Salvador. https://www.ifad.org/en/web/operations/w/country/el-salvador
Kauck, D. M. (1988). Agricultural commercialization and state development in Central America: The political economy of the coffee industry from 1838 to 1940. University of Washington.
Kowalchuk, L. (2003). Peasant struggle, political opportunities, and the unfinished agrarian reform in El Salvador. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 28(3), 309–340.
Montero, E. (2022). Cooperative property rights and development: Evidence from land reform in El Salvador. Journal of Political Economy, 130(1), 48–93. https://doi.org/10.1086/717042
Salvador, E., & van der Borgh, C. (2000). The politics of neoliberalism in postwar El Salvador. Journal of Political Economy, 30(1).
Winders, B. (2009). The politics of food supply: U.S. agricultural policy in the world economy. Yale University Press.
Winson, A. (1978). Class structure and agrarian transition in Central America. Latin American Perspectives, 5(4), 27–48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2633242
