ABSTRACT
Agricultural protection in most developed countries has distorted world markets and has had detrimental effects on the economic growth of agriculture in developing countries. Escalating budgetary costs coupled with growing friction between principal trading partners, such as the European Community, United States, and Japan, have generated pressures for comprehensive reform of agricultural policies. For the most part, however, agriculture has proven resistant to reform. Lack of political will to comprehensively liberalize agriculture has left protectionist policies intact in most developed countries. The reluctance of governments to liberalize agriculture can be attributed to fears that reform will lead to significant economic hardship and to eventual shrinkage of the protected agricultural industries.
