ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the new relations between European farming and world markets following 1992 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms will be explored. It looks at the problems raised and new questions posed by change since the 1992 reforms. The original objectives of the CAP, as laid out in the early 1960s, need to be understood in terms of the political and economic context of the period. Europeans, particularly the increasingly important urban population, had been confronted by real food shortages during the Second World War and in the years that immediately followed its end. Although commodity regimes have been set up within the CAP for all major types of European agricultural production since the 1960s, not all sectors benefit equally from the several principles. Particularly during the 1980s, the criticisms of the CAP that gained strength derive essentially from the fact that the original CAP was above all a price support policy.
