[1][needs update] Moreover, agricultural policy needs to account for a lot of shocks to the system: for example, agriculture is highly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, such as decreases in water access, geophysical processes such as ocean level rise and changing weather, and socioeconomic processes that affect farmers, many of whom are in subsistence economic conditions.
[7] Approximately 80% of the world's impoverished population, who primarily reside in rural areas and earn their livelihood through farming, can benefit from agriculture in terms of poverty reduction, income generation, and food security.
In addition, a recent Natural Resource Perspective paper by the Overseas Development Institute found that good infrastructure, education and effective information services in rural areas were necessary to improve the chances of making agriculture work for the poor.
[9] During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a disregard for the agriculture sector among policymakers and investors, only regaining interest when the prices of staple food crops experienced a significant increase in the mid-2000s.
In Indonesia, since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 to 1998, the government's agricultural policy has been closely concentrated on achieving price stability and self-sufficiency for import-competing commodities, such as palm oil, sugar and rice.
Rwanda's Crop Intensification Program is another example of such policy, which provides farmers with inputs like fertilisers, improved seeds, and pesticides, as well as training and technical support to help them adopt more efficient farming practices.
[10] The biosecurity concerns facing industrial agriculture can be illustrated by: The use of animal vaccines can create new viruses that kill people and cause flu pandemic threats.
According to the CDC article "H5N1 Outbreaks and Enzootic Influenza" by Robert G. Webster et al.: "Transmission of highly pathogenic H5N1 from domestic poultry back to migratory waterfowl in western China has increased the geographic spread.
"[13] In response to the same concerns, Reuters reports Hong Kong infectious disease expert Lo Wing-lok indicating that vaccines have to take top priority.
The current scientific view is that infectious proteins called prions developed through spontaneous mutation, probably in the 1970s, and there is a possibility that the use of organophosphorus pesticides increased the susceptibility of cattle to the disease.
Farmers around the world can lose huge amounts of money during a foot-and-mouth epidemic, when large numbers of animals are destroyed and revenues from milk and meat production go down.
Simultaneously, other diagnostic tests (antibody detection, fatty-acid profiling, and genetic procedures using PCR) are conducted to identify the particular canker strain.
[27] Climate change presents additional threats to food security, affecting crop yields, distribution of pests and diseases, weather patterns, and growing seasons around the world.
Food security has thus become an increasingly important topic in agricultural policy as decision makers attempt to reduce poverty and malnutrition while augmenting adaptive capacity to climate change.
This movement is advocated by a number of farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth, and environmental organizations.
Maintaining adequate domestic capability allows for food self-sufficiency that lessens the risk of supply shocks due to geopolitical events.
Many countries have used this method of welfare support as it delivers cheap food to the poorest in urban areas without the need to assess people to give them financial aid.
The same often counts for poverty relief in the form of food aid, which (unless while during severe drought) drives small producers in poor countries out of production.
It tends to benefit lower middle class groups (sub-urban and urban poor) at the expense of the poorest 20 percent, who as a result remain deprived of customers.
Opponents point out that most agriculture in developed nations is produced by industrial corporations (agribusiness) which are hardly deserving of sympathy, and that the alternative to exploitation is poverty.
[citation needed] Therefore, the biggest impediment to the growth of small farming and therefore of fair trade in sectors beyond coffee and bananas, is these quality demands from the rich world.
... exporters can offer US surpluses for sale at prices around half the cost of production; destroying local agriculture and creating a captive market in the process."
New greenhouse methods, hydroponics, fertilizers, R/O water processors, hybrid crops, fast-growing hybrid trees for quick shade, interior temperature control, greenhouse or tent insulation, autonomous building gardens, sun lamps, mylar, fans, and other cheap tech can be used to grow crops on previously unarable land, such as rocky, mountainous, desert, and even Arctic lands.
For example, subsidizing agricultural companies allows them to expand their industry and offer their products at lower prices to customers, but increases the firm's water and land usage which are at the cost of natural habitats.
[31] These externalities and trade-offs put the policymakers in a dilemma because our current global agriculture system is vulnerable to many disruptions such as weather changes, locality, manpower shifts, etc.
Some claim that these aggregate figures are misleading because large agribusinesses, rather than individual farmers, receive a significant share of total subsidy spending.
The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 contains direct and countercyclical payments designed to limit the effects of low prices and yields.
While this has diminished the distortions created by the Common Agricultural Policy, many critics argue that a greater focus on the provision of public goods, such as biodiversity and clean water, is needed.
[37] The WTO has extracted commitments from the Philippines government, making it lower import barriers to half their present levels over a span of six years, and allowing in drastically increased competition from the industrialised and heavily subsidised farming systems of North America and Europe.
A recent Oxfam report estimated that average household incomes of maize farmers will be reduced by as much as 30% over the six years as cheap imports from the US drive down prices in the local markets.