The Australia — New Zealand Farm Problem and the Appropriate Role of Government

A. G. Lloyd

Australian Economic Review, 1987, vol. 20, issue 3, 3-20

Abstract: Almost throughout the world, farm incomes tend to be low and unstable compared with incomes in other industries, except where heavily subsidised. This instability has become all the more serious because fluctuations have been around a long‐term downward trend in the fortunes of agriculture which commenced probably prior to World War I. The long‐run world‐wide farm problem is an inevitable consequence of economic growth, which results in a surplus of farmers, and especially of small farmers. We must recognise the quite intractable nature of the long‐term world‐wide component of the problem, as distinct from what can be blamed on our governments, and on the short‐term to medium‐term world market situation. Temporary assistance policy should centre on facilitating adjustment. The ad hoc, inefficient and inequitable palliatives of the past should be avoided. Short‐term assistance should be consistent with longer term objectives for industry development: it should not include output‐based subsidies that encourage continued overproduction and usually provide most assistance to those in least need. The emphasis should be on welfare‐type assistance based on the individual rather than industry‐wide aid.

Date: 1987
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8462.1987.tb00668.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:20:y:1987:i:3:p:3-20

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... 7-8462&ref=1467-8462

Access Statistics for this article

Australian Economic Review is currently edited by John de New, Viet Hoang Nguyen and Susan Méndez

More articles in Australian Economic Review from The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().