ABSTRACT
The political framework within which agricultural development and food policies have been formulated has strongly reinforced the effects of geography and climate. The most serious obstacle to increased food production in Iran in 1978 was the discrepancy between the peasants' substantial role in agricultural production and their simultaneous lack of political leverage. Food policies raised fundamental questions of state security. Iran's food imports supported the regime's overall commitments to the West—its major food suppliers, oil customers, and arms suppliers. Shortfalls in food production left the shah with four alternatives to politically dangerous food price increases. The attractiveness of the Iranian food market was partly a result of the government's policy of subsidizing food imports to keep consumer food prices down. A major impediment to eliminating the system of influence peddling and, in turn, to implementing more consistent food policy was the lack of pressure for bureaucratic responsibility from a productive domestic farming sector.
