Agricultural policy

The global onslaught of the products with the freeing up of economy had a horrendous effect on the overall agricultural situation on some of the countries. With the economy opening up different sectors they were exposed to the harsh market realities of a free economy and major countries were forced to do restructuring of their Agricultural policy. There was a lot of discussion between the economist about the agricultural sector and the scholars grappled on to how to deal with the situation in the current scenario. With the onset of technology we see that the middlemen with a laptop and a broadband connection were able to trade between the different markets.

The existence of the trading in the future stocks made life worse for the original consumers. In western countries like the U.S and the U.K the governments provide subsidies to the farmers so that they make profits. We all very well know that the agriculture is the back bone of the economy. The rising population and the people becoming rich the demand for the food products has grown exponentially as a result food security became a prime issue for the people. The current rise in food prices has resulted in the curbing of consumption in consumer goods because a majority share of money is transferred to satiate the hungry population. As a result the general trade and business might go down and we would see another onslaught of recession. This would lead to a widespread fall in the demand and probably social unrest and regime change in some countries.

The government should make sure that the people remain satisfied and not be bogged under the weight of providing essential food products to the family members. The global economy has its own positives and negatives. Since the economies are interconnected the loss of a particular crop in one country might increase the global demand and would affect the other country as well even if the production of that particular crop in that country is good because of export to the former. So we see that an artificial deficit is created in the second country even though there was none due to the exports. So we need to find a delicate balance between the supply and demand and then formulate the Agricultural policy. In the western countries the farmers use modern electronic equipments like the GPS (global positioning system) to check for the crop production. There has been lot of advancement lately in the mechanized farming. It is capital intensive agriculture where the yield per hectare is very high. The corns in today’s world are used to produce ethanol to be used to drive automobiles. Many economies in the world are still agrarian and they need essential commodities to sustain themselves in this fast paced modern world. The governments should try to curb the middlemen and directly procure products from the farmers. This would check inflation and also enable the people to get food at a reasonable price. In a nutshell we must first take care of the citizens of our country and then the rest.