ABSTRACT
Agricultural policy was once synonymous with farm (and ranch) public policy, the actions of U.S. government to modernize and industrialize producers of food and fiber commodities away from subsistence agrarianism. Thus, agricultural policy has been categorized as economic policy, or sector support. Today this is a misleading description. The evolution of modernizing agricultural policy touches myriad domestic, social, and international affairs matters through a formidable agricultural establishment. Issues of hunger, food safety and nutrition, trade, world food needs, environmental degradation, soil and water conservation, farm worker status and protection, rural poverty, and rural development are each institutionally central to contemporary agricultural policy.
