Conflicts in Agricultural Policy Objectives
Agricultural policy
objectives may become conflicting; and when this happens, efforts aimed at
achieving one objective undermine the others
Two types of policy
conflicts are identified in the literature, namely:
1. The logical or
analytical conflict
2. The group dynamics
conflict (or inter-group conflict)
Let go to details.
1. The logical or analytical conflict
A logical conflict in
objectives arises where there is implied conflict or contradiction in the
logical structure of the objectives. Below are some examples:
a. The objectives of
stabilizing producer prices and ensuring fair income for farmers. Under certain
price elasticity of demand conditions, stable prices may lead to lowered income
and incentives for producers. Moreover, profit-seeking farmers and business
people usually prefer some element of speculation and uncertainty in the price
of their products in order to obtain higher returns.
b. The objective of
increasing self-reliance through food import substitution may be conflicting
with a policy of structural adjustment that liberalizes food imports thereby
dampening inventive for domestic food producers.
c. The objective of
increasing the availability of raw materials for agro allied industries may be
conflicting with the objective of increasing smallholder food security if the
same set of crops is involved. For instance, maize, groundnut, tomatoes, and
palm oil are used for both staple consumption and industrial processing.
Therefore, increased use
of these crops for one purpose decreases the quantities available for other
uses. When objectives are logically conflicting, one of the objectives will be
achieved only at the expense of the other. This requires that nations should
properly prioritize their objectives to give greater weights to the more
preferred objective.
2.
The group dynamics conflict or inter-group conflict
This type of conflict
arises out of the social dynamics of competing group interests in agricultural
policy. It is a fact of life that different social and political groups in the
society have competing, contending, and often conflicting interests regarding
their expectations from food policy.
Thus, agricultural policy
objectives come to mean different things to different group of people in the
society. These different group may be geographically, occupationally,
ethnically, culturally, or socio-economically distinct and identifiable.
Examples of these groups
will include farmers, merchants, lenders, artisans, borrowers, the poor, civil
servants, communities, etc.
Examples of this group
dynamics conflict are as explained below:
a. The objective of
ensuring fair prices that act as incentive for farmers and food producers. This
objective almost invariably conflicts with the objective of reducing food costs
to the consumers.
Farmer’s food producers
and food consumers belong to different socio-economic groups with conflicting
interests and expectations in the food economy.
While farmers want high
food prices to ensure reasonable returns on their investment, consumers expect
cheaper foods from a viable agricultural policy.
b. The policy objective
of minimum wage legislation in the food industry, which may conflict, with the
objective of increasing investment in the industry by profit-seeking
entrepreneurs. This is because minimum wage increases food production costs
thereby increasing the propensity to invest in the industry.
c. The objective of
providing cheap agricultural credit or credit subsidy to farmers could dampen
incentives by financial institutions to lend to the agricultural sector. There
could be a geographical dimension to this inter-group conflict of objectives.
In a country like
Nigeria, where geographical settlement patterns are along ethnic cleavages, the
location of a project in one ethnic region based on technical recommendations
may include suspicion of favoritism by the other ethnic groups. If this
suspicion is not assuaged, it could lead to the destabilization of governance
through protests, riots and strikes.
In order to correct for
this, policy may have to adopt balancing act by siting the same project in all
the ethnic regions.
A particular example in
Nigeria is the concept of Universities of Agriculture which was originally
planned for agriculturally rich middle belt zone of the country, but which has
now been extended to the other agricultural regions.
Resolving conflict in Agricultural Policy Objectives
Many policies fail even
before they are implemented owing largely to the seeds of conflict and
contradictions they habour.
Resolving these conflicts
in policy objectives should be an important aspect of policy formulation. The
guiding principles on the resolution of conflicts in objectives depend on the
type of conflict.
Guidelines
for resolving logical or analytical conflicts
For the logical or
analytical conflict, the following guidelines are recommended:
a. In setting objectives,
potential areas of analytical or logical conflict should be minimized by re-examining
the logical structure of the objectives.
For example, in most
cases incomes and low or stable prices are not logically positively related.
Consequently, objectives
directed at simultaneously achieving both outcomes may be conflicting.
Similarly, the objective of promoting the adoption of purchased inputs among farmers
may become conflicting with efforts aimed at preserving traditional farming
systems.
b. Where a given policy
objective could produce unintended results, policy-makers or decision-makers
should be so informed. Also, the possible consequences of such unintended
results should be highlighted.
For instance, a policy of
agricultural credit guarantee could slacken incentives by banks to monitor
loans and ensure repayment. This may produce the unintended result that
majority of agricultural loans are underpaid. If that is the case, the policy
of agricultural credit guarantee ostensibly intended to increase the flow of
credit to the sector, ends up reducing credit to the sector through accumulated
bad debts! These possible consequences should be highlighted to policy-makers
along with possible remedial measures.
c. Inevitable conflicts
in agricultural policy objectives can be mitigated by the adoption of
complementary public policies. The policy of credit insurance to increase the
flow of credits to farmers will create less repayment problems for banks if
complementary public policies are adopted.
The essence of such policies
would be to reduce the occurrence of the unintended or undesirable outcomes.
Such complementary
measure might include the joint monitoring of farmers ‘projects by both the
lending bank and the credit guarantee agency (usually the central bank), periodic
inspection of the bad debts returns of banks by the apex bank, and the raising
of farm productivity through encouragement of the adoption by farmers, of
productivity enhancing technologies disseminated by the agricultural extension
system.
d. When policy objectives
are still conflicting, in spite of A, B, and C above, policymakers should be
able to rank-order or prioritize objectives based on the underlying philosophy
of the country or her current economic situation.
The objective that is of
greater strategic importance should be preferred.
Read On: Agricultural Policy: Types and Importance
Resolving
the group dynamics conflicts or inter-group conflict
1. Examining more
carefully the benefits and costs imposed by policy objectives on different
groups of people: Conflict can be resolved by examining more carefully the
benefits and costs imposed by policy objectives on different groups of people.
This may entail some form
of stakeholder analysis in which ex ante assessment of the impact of public
policy on the major stakeholders is identified.
For instance, if a farm
settlement project is to be established in a particular community, the possible
impact of the project (both positive and negative) on farmers, the
participants, the local community, neighboring communities, banks, input
merchants, the government (through the budget), extension system, and other
relevant stakeholders, should be analyzed.
Based on this analysis, a
suitable compensation principle should be employed to compensate for the effect
of the project on loser groups.
2. Adoption of participatory approach among the major stakeholders in the policy formulation process: Conflicts in policy objectives can be minimized where the policy formulation process adopts participatory approach so that major stakeholders are adequately consulted and their inputs sought to the overall policy.
The participatory
approach enables the various stakeholders to negotiate a common ground, accept
the final policy, and co-operate during its implementation. Studies have shown
that when farmers are consulted in the process of developing a new technology
for the farming system, they are easily persuaded to accept or adopt the
resulting technology than otherwise.
Conclusion on Conflicts and Resolving Conflict in Agricultural Policy Objectives
There are two types of
conflict in policy objectives namely, a logical or analytical, and group
dynamics or inter-group conflict in policy objectives.
A logical or analytical
conflict in objectives arises where there is implied conflict or contradiction
in the logical structure of the objectives. For example, the objective of
increasing self-reliance through food import substitution may be conflicting
with a policy of structural adjustment that liberalizes food imports thereby
dampening inventive for domestic food producers.
The group dynamics or
inter-group conflict arises out of the social dynamics of competing group
interests in agricultural policy. It is a fact of life that different social
and political groups in the society have competing, contending, and often
conflicting interests regarding their expectations from agricultural and food
policy.
In setting objectives,
potential areas of analytical or logical conflict should be minimized by re-examining
the logical structure of the objectives. For example, in most cases incomes and
low (or stable) prices are not logically positively related.
Consequently, objectives
directed at simultaneously achieving both outcomes may be conflicting.
Where a given policy
objective could produce unintended results, policy-makers or decision-makers
should be so informed. Also, the possible consequences of such unintended
results should be highlighted.
For instance, a policy of
agricultural credit guarantee could slacken incentives by banks to monitor
loans and ensure repayment. Inevitable conflicts in agricultural policy
objectives can be mitigated by the adoption of complementary public policies.
Resolving the group dynamics conflicts or inter-group conflict can also be done by the following:
Examining more carefully the benefits and
costs imposed by policy objectives on different groups of people and adoption of
participatory approach among the major stakeholders in the policy formulation
process.
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