ABSTRACT
American production agricultures current stage of development is de-emphasizing land and labor use because increasing use of capital and management is raising productivity more rapidly than demand for commodities is increasing. The American agricultural policy gets its general focus from the issues facing agriculture around the world and, as would be expected, over time those issues change. Government policies have many effects on agriculture, but some of the most direct come from payments to agricultural producers. The government payments to agriculture are transfers of taxpayers money to some people involved in agricultural operations of some sort. To understand where American agricultural policy is going, it is necessary to examine the many issues that current policy is trying to address. Those issues represent the government's current justification for intervention in agricultural markets. The stronger economic arguments are on the side of less-developed countries which bring the current focus of American agricultural policy to dealing with incremental steps toward free trade.
