| Responsible Department | Institute of Food and Resource Economics | ||||||||||||||||
| Earliest Possible Year | MSc. 1 year to MSc. 2 year | ||||||||||||||||
| Duration | One block | ||||||||||||||||
| Credits | 7.5 (ECTS) | ||||||||||||||||
| Level of Course | MSc | ||||||||||||||||
| Examination | Continuous Assessment written examination and oral examination All aids allowed Description of Examination: The Evaluation falls in two parts: (i) a student presentation of agricultural or food policy in a country of her/his own choice, (ii) an individual/group essay handed in at the end of the course Weight: Weight: Student presentation: 25 percent. Essay: 75 percent In addition to the weights indicated above, the mark will be based on an overall assessment. 7-point scale, no second examiner | ||||||||||||||||
| Organisation of Teaching | Lectures, discussions, student presentations and tutorials | ||||||||||||||||
| Block Placement | Block 3 Week Structure: A | ||||||||||||||||
| Language of Instruction | English | ||||||||||||||||
| Optional Prerequisites | Public Economics and Policy Analysis, International Economics | ||||||||||||||||
| Restrictions | none | ||||||||||||||||
| Course Content | |||||||||||||||||
| Governments have been intensively involved in agriculture over many decades. In the developed countries, governments provide various types of direct and indirect subsidies to farmers. In the emerging economies, governments are increasingly performing a similar role while government intervention in the developing countries is of a very different nature, subsidising consumers rather than farmers. This type of intervention is aimed at affecting the income distribution in a society and is the classical concern behind agricultural policies. Food policy refers to another aspect of government intervention in the agricultural sector. Governments are increasingly becoming concerned about ensuring safe food for consumers and preventing threats to animal and plant health. The main objective of this course is to enable the students to understand how and why governments intervene in the agricultural and food sector. In the introductory part of the course focuses on the reasons why governments intervene in agriculture and asks why the farm industry is considered an industry which requires special treatment in terms of government intervention. Further, the consequences of agricultural policies, not least for the developing countries, are discussed. An important question is why government support for farming has been so persistent over time despite major structural changes in the farm sector? Amongst economists and other social scientists, agricultural support is seen as a highly distorting type of government intervention in the food economy and in international trade. Political scientists puzzle why agricultural support has been so persistent in spite of the fact that agriculture has a small, and declining, importance in employment and income generation within developed countries. Are there lessons to be learned for the emerging economies and developing countries from the long history of agricultural support in the developed countries? Are they about to make the same mistakes, locking-in expensive and distorting support schemes which are difficult to abolish when first introduced? Since the mid-1980s, agricultural support has become more contentious as it became clear that some types of agricultural support were highly trade distorting and the costs of farm policies skyrocketed. As a result of this agricultural trade became a contentious issue in the trade negotiation in the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the 1990s and 2000s a series of policy reforms in the developed countries were undertaken with the aim of reshaping the support schemes and in a few cases substantial parts of the support have been abolished. Another development during the 1990s and 2000 was the globalisation of food safety standards. The WTO now has rules on food safety regulations dictating that they must be based on scientific standards and cannot be used as technical barriers to trade. This has implied that scientists and scientific evidence have become important in food policy making, constraining governments in food safety policy making. The course will introduce selected theories to explain public policy making, focusing on policy stability and policy change. It will be demonstrated how these theories have been applied in agricultural and food policy studies to explain policy persistence over time and why in some situations agricultural policies have been substantially reformed against all odds. | |||||||||||||||||
| Teaching and learning Methods | |||||||||||||||||
| The course is structured in three parts. In the first part, the students will be introduced to agricultural and food policy, including the WTO trade regime. Teaching in this part will be based on lectures and discussions in the class. In the second part, the participants will be introduced to a number of selected theoretical approaches, focusing on the role of interests, institutions and ideas in politics, and to studies applying these approaches in agricultural and food policy analysis. Teaching in this part is based on lectures introducing the key aspects of the theories and group discussions aimed at improving the participants' understanding of the theories and their ability to reflect critically upon them. In the third part, the participants are asked to prepare group presentations of one or more self-selected cases of agricultural or food policy, supervised by the teacher. In the fourth part, the students produce an individual or group essay (max. 3500 words) undertaking a theoretically guided analysis of agricultural or food policy in countries of their own choice, supervised by the teacher. | |||||||||||||||||
| Learning Outcome | |||||||||||||||||
| The learning outcome of this course is twofold: First, this course provides overviews of the architecture of agricultural and food policies and current policy debates. Secondly, the course will give the participants the necessary basic analytical skills to understand and conduct graduate level analysis on agricultural and food policy issues. After completing this course the students are expected to possess the following qualifications: Knowledge . Understand of role of government in the agricultural and food sector. . Understand the nature of agricultural and food policies and the global farm trade and food regulation system. . Possess a basic overview of theories which are relevant for the analysis of agricultural and food policy. Skills . Apply theories and methodologies to account for the magnitude of agricultural support and to explain the motivation behind agricultural support. . Explain developments in agricultural and food policies, applying public policy theories. . Communicate these agricultural and food policy issues orally and in writing. Competences . Put the economic role of the state in agriculture and food regulation into a political perspective . A basic knowledge on the political and institutional conditions impacting on agricultural and food policy making . Work independently and cooperate in groups to provide insights into the core aspects of agricultural and food policy | |||||||||||||||||
| Course Literature | |||||||||||||||||
| OECD (2007). Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: Monitoring and Evaluation. OECD 2007. Paris. OECD (2007). Agricultural Policies in Non-OECD Countries: Monitoring and Evaluation. OECD 2007. Paris. World Bank (1997). The State in a Changing World. World Development Report 1997. World Bank. 1997. Washington D.C. Various articles and book chapters | |||||||||||||||||
| Course Coordinator | |||||||||||||||||
| Carsten Daugbjerg, cda@foi.dk, Institute of Food and Resource Economics/International Economics and Policy Unit, Phone: 353-32269 | |||||||||||||||||
| Study Board | |||||||||||||||||
| Study Committee NSN | |||||||||||||||||
| Work Load | |||||||||||||||||
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