ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the making of national nitrate policies as an example of agri-environmental policy making because Danish and Swedish policy makers paid most attention to the contamination of ground and surface waters by nitrate. In a low cost nitrate policy, the major principle of agricultural policy making, the principle of state responsibility, is transferred from the agricultural policy to the nitrate policy. The application of that principle implies that the state takes care of the well-being of farmers. Applied in nitrate policy making, the principle would ensure that the nitrate policy does not inflict too many and too high political and economic costs on farmers. In 1987, the minister of agriculture set up a committee, named the Intensity Group, to suggest changes in the agricultural policy. It examined how surplus cereals production, pollution and environmental damage in the agricultural sector could be decreased. Since the mid-1980s, the Federation of Farmers has developed more positive attitudes to pollution control.
