ABSTRACT
This chapter develops an understanding of the formulation and purpose of United States international food policy. Opinions on America’s capability to utilize its agricultural resources for general foreign policy purposes run the full spectrum, from the position that food power provides the key to restoring the United States to its former position of pre-eminence in the world, to the belief that its vast agricultural resources actually create a kind of dependency situation on the major importing countries. Any evaluation of the potential purpose and usefulness of United States foreign agricultural policy must, however, take into consideration the process of policy formulation. A major premise of the chapter has been that U. S. foreign agricultural policy could be best understood through utilization of a “state interest” analytical framework. The chapter examines cases that confirm the conflictual nature of the decision-making process in food policy, and sustain the hypothesis that this dynamic provides the key to understanding the objectives of policy.
