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.