The book analyses agricultural economics and food policy in New Zealand, where farming produce has been by far the main export commodity. Farming exports' importance, together with the need to diversify exports away from a former colonial relationship with the UK, makes liberalising agricultural trade a major concern for New Zealand. Farmers, themselves, have influenced, significantly, policy development and implementation through their organisation, Federated Farmers. After World War II farmers at first encouraged Government financial support for farming and by the 1980s farming was highly subsidised. Farmers recognised in the 1980s that New Zealand's economic problems demanded reduced Government intervention and accepted ending farming subsidies. New Zealand then encouraged, globally, 'farming without subsidies'. New Zealand projected an image of environmental cleanliness and greenness in support of its exporting but into the 21 st century wrestled to maintain thatimage because farming impacted on water quality and climate change emissions.

Thoroughly analyzes an organization exerting influence on behalf of a rural community Explains the broad range of pressures on rural communities The first comprehensive history of Federated Farmers

Autorentext

David Hall's first career was in UK space science using rockets and satellites to study the auroral borealis, contributing to more than 40 academic publications. He then represented the UK in the international diplomacy of space science. After retiring from space science, he studied humanities and has had books published by Palgrave Macmillan on New Zealand's emergence from an entrenched colonial economy and on New Zealand's agricultural economics and food policy. He has also had a book published on New Zealand farm women's invisibility.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Coming Together to Work Collectively.- Chapter 3: Struggling Towards a Unified Organisation.- Chapter 4: Emerging from wartime conditions.- Chapter 5: Impact nationally and internationally.- Chapter 6: Farming anxieties and a more favourable Government.- Chapter 7: The weakening relationship with the UK and market diversification.- Chapter 8: Growing farmer influence on Government.- Chapter 9: Domestic matters for meat, dairy and agriculture in the 1950s and 1960s.- Chapter 10: Wool: prosperity then reform .- Chapter 11: Impact of the European Economic Community (EEC).- Chapter 12: Encouraging Government support for farming.- Chapter 13: Subsidisation keeps growing.- Chapter 14: Subsidies at their maximum and their death.- Chapter 15: A comprehensive strategy for agricultural economics and food policy.- Chapter 16: Enforced change in farming practices.- Chapter 17: Reforming their own organization.- Chapter 18: Producer Boards' reform.- Chapter 19: Reform to reduce farming costs.- Chapter 20: Environment.- Chapter 21: Water Quality - 'clean and green' versus 'dirty dairying'.- Chapter 22: Farming and Mori, New Zealand's indigenous people.- Chapter 23: Difficult times in the new millennium.- Chapter 24: Increasing pressures on farming from the outside world.- Chapter 25: Trade Agreements.- Chapter 26: Future Agricultural Economics and Food Policy?