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Menedemus

Menedemus of Eretria (Μενέδημος ὁ Ἐρετριεύς; 345/44 – 261/60 BC) was a Greek philosopher and founder of the Eretrian school. He learned philosophy first in Athens, and then, with his friend Asclepiades, he subsequently studied under Stilpo and Phaedo of Elis. Nothing survives of his philosophical views apart from a few scattered remarks recorded by later writers.

Life
Menedemus was born at Eretria. He was a member of the noble Theopropidai family, which held significant religious authority but had become impoverished by Menedemus's time. Like his father, Cleisthenes, he worked as a builder and tent maker.

In the course of military conflicts (probably 323/322 BC, during the Lamian War) he was sent with a military expedition to Megara, from where he traveled to the Platonic Academy in Athens and resolved to devote himself to philosophy. At Megara he formed a lifelong friendship with Asclepiades of Phlius, with whom he toiled in the night that he might study philosophy by day. Later, Asclepiades and Menedemus went to Elis and became students of the philosophical descendants of Phaedo of Elis, namely Anchipylus and Moschus. He was subsequently a pupil first of Stilpo and then of, whose school he transferred to Eretria, by which name it was afterward known. Around 310 BC, Asclepiades and Menedemus visited Salamis in Cyprus, where they stayed at the court of King Nikocreon.

In addition to his philosophical work, he took a leading part in the political affairs of his city from the time of the Diadochi until his death. By about 300 BC, Menedemus began to assume a prominent position in the political life of his hometown on the island of Euboea. He is said to have campaigned for the independence of Eretria, which had lost much of its former importance at that time, and accompanied numerous embassies to other Greek cities. During this time, Menedemus grew close to Antigonus II Gonatas, the king of Macedonia who dominated Euboea. His friendship with Antigonus II Gonatas seems to have roused suspicion as to his loyalty, and he sought safety first in the temple of Amphiaraus at Oropus, and later with Antigonus, at whose court he is said to have died of grief. Other accounts say that he starved himself to death on failing to induce Antigonus to free his native city.

Relationships
According to Diogenes Laertius, Menedemus married the mother of his older friend Asclepiades's wife. When Asclepiades's wife died, he is said to have left his wife to him and married someone richer with whom he had three daughters. His first wife continued to run the household. Menedemus was friends with the poets Aratos of Soloi, Lycophron of Chalcis, and Antagoras of Rhodes. Diogenes Laertius names Dionysius of Heraclea and Antigonus II Gonatas as possible students of Menedemus.

Philosophy
His philosophical views are known only in part. Athenaeus quotes Epicrates as stating that he was a Platonist, but other accounts credit him with having preferred Stilpo to Plato. Diogenes Laërtius says that he declined to identify the Good with the Useful and that he denied the value of the negative proposition on the ground that affirmation alone can express truth. In ethics we learn from Plutarch and from Cicero that he regarded Virtue as one, by whatever name it be called, and maintained that it is intellectual. Cicero's evidence is less valuable because he always assumed that Menedemus was a follower of the Megarian school. Diogenes says that he left no writings, and the Eretrian school disappeared after a short and unobtrusive existence.

title: Menedemus


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Talk:Archduke of Austria

Moved this out of the wikipedia:

"The Title of Archduke of Austria was once held by the sons of an Emperor of Austria. The title was abolished when the Austro-Hungarian Empire ended in November of 1918. The descendants of the last Emperor of Austria, Karl I, now hold the title of Archduke or Archduchess of Hapsburg. "

because it's wrong.

The use of titles in Austria was abolished in 1918. The son of the last Emperor of Austria, the current head of the house of Habsburg, who lives in Austria, calls himself Dr. Otto von Habsburg. Outside of Austria, and informally, at social occasions in Austria, people who but for the Austrian law of 1918 would be titled Archduke or Archduchess of Austria are still generally referred to as such. But in NO instance would anyone be referred to as an "Archduke of Hapsburg": it's a title that simply doesn't exist, and would be equally illegal if it did. -- Someone else 20:28 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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IJzevoorde

IJzevoorde is a hamlet in the municipalities of Doetinchem and Bronckhorst in the province of Gelderland in the east part of the Netherlands.

Overview
It was first mentioned in 1235 as Ysenuort and means fordable place through the IJze. The postal authorities have placed it under Doetinchem. In 1840, it was home to 839 people.

It includes a school, a kindergarten, a gym, a bar and a small stage. The school has about 60 students and there are a lot of farmers' children attending the school. IJzevoorde also has a small campground.

Close to IJzevoorde lies the Slangenburg Castle, referring to a little river called the Slinge.

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Talk:List of trees of Canada

Untitled
Is there really a need for this article? Although I'm willing to concede that there may be some trees that only occur in Canada, that would surely be only a tiny minority. -- Zoe
 * An actual article might be useful--one that discusses the ranges of different trees, where the treelines are, the strange tiny centuries-old trees on the Niagara escarpment, effects of logging over time...all sorts of stuff I don't know enough about to even begin to write. This list isn't an article, or even the bones of one. Vicki Rosenzweig

This list is useful - it is important to know whether trees are native or exotic, so the correct management policies can be implemented to best protect local flora/fauna and landscapes. Invasive trees and plants species are a real problem in Scotland and other parts of Europe, and they could be in Canada. Have a question though - is Scots Pine native to Canada?

 * No, Scots pine is not native in Canada; it is an invasive alien, introduced from Europe. I've marked it as an introduction. MPF

Remove introduced species
Theoretically, all trees that grow in temperate climates should be listed here since they could all be introduced. I think this list would be more valuable if only native trees are listed. Introduced trees should be listed in their native habitats. If there are no objections, I will remove the species listed as introduced. Atrian 15:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe leave in the introduced species that are formally listed as invasive species by the Canadian govt.? - MPF 12:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The introduced plant species in North America have become an integral part of the NA ecosystems (for better or for worse…), and it may be prudent to keep the introduced species listed. For List of the conifers of Canada, the only introduced species listed are those that have been given a designation from the Natural Heritage Information Centres (NHICs) across Canada (usually given as SNA-exotic).  These plants would have to be found in the wild (i.e., horticultural or agricultural escapees) and have collections in herbaria to be given these designations.  You're right, I don't think that we should include all the temperate-climate trees (maybe form a separate listing, something like List of horticultural trees or something).  The tulips I have growing in my front yard would not be included, until they escaped my horticulture and started growing and propagating themselves in the wild. FUNgus guy 18:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of trees of Canada


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Jean Rey (physician)

Jean Rey (c. 1583 – c. 1645) or (in English) John Rey was a French physician and chemist.

Born in Le Bugue, in the Périgord (Dordogne département), he studied medicine at the University of Montpellier. He practised medicine in his native town and corresponded with René Descartes and Marin Mersenne.

He discovered that the weight of lead and tin increases when they are calcinated, and attributed this phenomenon to the weight of air, which he believed to become denser when heated (Essays, 1630). He explained the greater weight of calcinated lead and tin by supposing that calcination involves the incorporation of air in the metal. This hypothesis would later be confirmed by Antoine Lavoisier, over a century later in 1789.

His discovery of the weight of air also made possible the invention of the barometer by Evangelista Torricelli in 1643. He also developed a device called a "Thermoscope", a precursor of the thermometer.

Jean Rey died in Le Bugue, where he had lived all his life. The exact date of his death is disputed.

title: Jean Rey (physician)


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Agricultural policy

Agricultural policy describes a set of laws relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets. Well designed agricultural policies use predetermined goals, objectives and pathways set by an individual or government for the purpose of achieving a specified outcome, for the benefit of the individual(s), society and the nations' economy at large. The goals could include issues such as biosecurity, food security, rural poverty reduction or increasing economic value through cash crop or improved food distribution or food processing.

Agricultural policies take into consideration the primary (production), secondary (such as food processing, and distribution) and tertiary processes (such as consumption and supply in agricultural products and supplies). Outcomes can involve, for example, a guaranteed supply level, price stability, product quality, product selection, land use or employment. Governments can use tools like rural development practices, agricultural extension, economic protections, agricultural subsidies or price controls to change the dynamics of agricultural production, or improve the consumer impacts of the production.

Agricultural policy has wide reaching primary and secondary effects. Agriculture has large impacts on climate change, estimated to be contributing 20–25% of global annual emissions as of 2010. 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. In order for global climate change mitigation and adaptation to be effective a wide range of policies need to be implemented to reduce the risk of negative climate change impacts on agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector.

Agriculture policy concerns
An example of the breadth and types of agriculture policy concerns can be found in the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics article "Agricultural Economies of Australia and New Zealand" which says that the major challenges and issues faced by their industrial agriculture industry are:
 * marketing challenges and consumer tastes
 * international trading environment (world market conditions, barriers to trade, quarantine and technical barriers, maintenance of global competitiveness and market image, and management of biosecurity issues affecting imports and the disease status of exports)
 * biosecurity (pests and diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), avian influenza, foot and mouth disease, citrus canker, and sugarcane smut)
 * infrastructure (such as transport, ports, telecommunications, energy and irrigation facilities)
 * management skills and labor supply (With increasing requirements for business planning, enhanced market awareness, the use of modern technology such as computers and global positioning systems and better agronomic management, modern farm managers will need to become increasingly skilled. Examples: training of skilled workers, the development of labor hire systems that provide continuity of work in industries with strong seasonal peaks, modern communication tools, investigating market opportunities, researching customer requirements, business planning including financial management, researching the latest farming techniques, risk management skills)
 * coordination (a more consistent national strategic agenda for agricultural research and development; more active involvement of research investors in collaboration with research providers developing programs of work; greater coordination of research activities across industries, research organisations and issues; and investment in human capital to ensure a skilled pool of research personnel in the future.)
 * technology (research, adoption, productivity, genetically modified (GM) crops, investments)
 * water (access rights, water trade, providing water for environmental outcomes, assignment of risk in response to the reallocation of water from consumptive to environmental use, accounting for the sourcing and allocation of water)
 * resource access issues (management of native vegetation, the protection and enhancement of biodiversity, sustainability of productive agricultural resources, and landholder responsibilities)

Poverty reduction
Policymakers working in poverty reduction in the agriculture sector assess, plan, or enact policies aimed to address the needs of persons living in poverty. Agriculture has been a critical driver of poverty reduction in most developing countries, particularly in rural areas. 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. Fostering agricultural development is therefore a crucial element of agricultural policy in a developing country. 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.

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. As a result of agricultural policy neglect, there has been a scarcity of investment in infrastructure, which has hindered agricultural development and public goods, such as education, research and development and technology. Rural productive sectors and small agricultural enterprises suffer from market failures due to policies favouring urban areas and lending policies biased against small-scale agricultural firms. Neglect in implementing agriculture policy has been detected in several developing countries. 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.

International agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), espouse the prioritisation of agricultural endeavours to support poverty reduction. The impact of agricultural policy on reducing poverty differs across countries and is influenced by a variety of factors, such as the level of government policy support, the degree of public and private investment in agriculture, the different types of agriculture, and the growth rates of agriculture parallel to non-agriculture sectors. In particular, investment in agricultural research and development has been shown to be highly influential on agricultural GDP growth and poverty reduction. Government policies play a key role in promoting agricultural activities, such as irrigation systems, roads and telecommunication systems, land reform, power in rural areas, fiscal support for research and development, pricing policies, assistance for new technologies, and markets for agricultural produce. Agricultural policies have contributed to meeting the goals related to increasing, diversifying, and improving agricultural production.

Agricultural policies aimed at reducing poverty include India's Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, which offers crop insurance to farmers to protect them from weather-related uncertainties and potential crop failures. This initiative provides farmers with financial aid for crop loss, reducing the risk of falling into poverty. 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. However, for agricultural policies to contribute to poverty reduction, it is essential that they collaborate effectively and cohesively with other sectors, such as tourism, sustainable economy, and industry.

Biosecurity
The biosecurity concerns facing industrial agriculture can be illustrated by:
 * the threat to poultry and humans from H5N1; possibly caused by the use of animal vaccines
 * the threat to cattle and humans from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE); possibly caused by the unnatural feeding of cattle to cattle to minimize costs
 * the threat to industry profits from diseases like foot-and-mouth disease and citrus canker which increasing globalization makes harder to contain

Avian influenza
The use of animal vaccines can create new viruses that kill people and cause flu pandemic threats. H5N1 is an example of where this might have already occurred. 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. The spread of H5N1 and its likely reintroduction to domestic poultry increase the need for good agricultural vaccines. In fact, the root cause of the continuing H5N1 pandemic threat may be the way the pathogenicity of H5N1 viruses is masked by co-circulating influenza viruses or bad agricultural vaccines." Robert Webster explains: "If you use a good vaccine you can prevent the transmission within poultry and to humans. But if they have been using vaccines now [in China] for several years, why is there so much bird flu? There is bad vaccine that stops the disease in the bird but the bird goes on pooping out the virus and maintaining it and changing it. And I think this is what is going on in China. It has to be. Either there is not enough vaccine being used or there is substandard vaccine being used. Probably both. It's not just China. We can't blame China for substandard vaccines. I think there are substandard vaccines for influenza in poultry all over the world."

In response to the same concerns, Reuters reports Hong Kong infectious disease expert Lo Wing-lok indicating that vaccines have to take top priority. Julie Hall, who is in charge of the WHO's outbreak response in China, claimed that China's vaccinations might be masking the virus. The BBC reported that Wendy Barclay, a virologist at the University of Reading, UK said: "The Chinese have made a vaccine based on reverse genetics made with H5N1 antigens, and they have been using it. There has been a lot of criticism of what they have done because they have protected their chickens against death from this virus but the chickens still get infected, and then you get the drift - the virus mutates in response to the antibodies - and now we have a situation where we have five or six 'flavours' of H5N1 out there."

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as "mad cow disease", is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle, which infects by a mechanism that surprised biologists upon its discovery in the late 20th century. In the UK, the country worst affected, 179,000 cattle were infected and 4.4 million were killed as a precaution. The disease can be transmitted to human beings who eat or inhale material from infected carcasses. In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by June 2007, it had killed 165 people in Britain, and six elsewhere with the number expected to rise because of the disease's long incubation period. Between 460,000 and 482,000 BSE-infected animals had entered the human food chain before controls on high-risk offal were introduced in 1989.

A British inquiry into BSE concluded that the epidemic was caused by feeding cattle, who are normally herbivores, the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal (MBM), which caused the infectious agent to spread. The origin of the disease itself remains unknown. 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. The infectious agent is distinctive for the high temperatures it is able to survive; this contributed to the spread of the disease in Britain, which had reduced the temperatures used during its rendering process. Another contributory factor was the feeding of infected protein supplements to very young calves instead of milk from their mothers.

Foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious and sometimes fatal viral disease of cattle and pigs. It can also infect deer, goats, sheep, and other bovids with cloven hooves, as well as elephants, rats, and hedgehogs. Humans are affected only very rarely. FMD occurs throughout much of the world, and while some countries have been free of FMD for some time, its wide host range and rapid spread represent cause for international concern. In 1996, endemic areas included Asia, Africa, and parts of South America. North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have been free of FMD for many years. Most European countries have been recognized as free, and countries belonging to the European Union have stopped FMD vaccination.

Infection with foot-and-mouth disease tends to occur locally, that is, the virus is passed on to susceptible animals through direct contact with infected animals or with contaminated pens or vehicles used to transport livestock. The clothes and skin of animal handlers such as farmers, standing water, and uncooked food scraps and feed supplements containing infected animal products can harbor the virus as well. Cows can also catch FMD from the semen of infected bulls. Control measures include quarantine and destruction of infected livestock, and export bans for meat and other animal products to countries not infected with the disease.

Because FMD rarely infects humans but spreads rapidly among animals, it is a much greater threat to the agriculture industry than to human health. 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. One of the difficulties in vaccinating against FMD is the huge variation between and even within serotypes. There is no cross-protection between serotypes (meaning that a vaccine for one serotype won't protect against any others) and in addition, two strains within a given serotype may have nucleotide sequences that differ by as much as 30% for a given gene. This means that FMD vaccines must be highly specific to the strain involved. Vaccination only provides temporary immunity that lasts from months to years. Therefore, rich countries maintain a policy of banning imports from all countries, not proven FMD-free by US or EU standards. This is a point of contention.

Although this disease is not dangerous to humans and rarely fatal to otherwise healthy animals, it reduces milk and meat production. Outbreaks can be stopped quickly if farmers and transporters are forced to abide by existing rules. Therefore, (besides temporary discomfort to the animals), any outbreak in the rich world should not be much more as a localized, cyclical economic problem. For countries with free roaming wildlife it is nearly impossible to prove that they are entirely free of this disease. If they try they are forced to erect nationwide fences, which destroys wildlife migration. Because detecting and reporting of FMD have enormously improved and sped up, almost all poor countries could now safely create FMD-free export zones. But rich countries refuse to change the rules. In effect, many poor tropical countries have no chance to meet current rules, so they are still today banned from exporting meat, even if many of them are FMD-free.

The result is that if drought hits, the poor try to cope by selling their few animals. This quickly saturates regional demand. The export ban then destroys the value of these animals, in effect destroying the most important coping mechanism of several hundreds of millions extremely poor households. The rules around meat exports have been changed many times, always to accommodate changing circumstances in rich countries, usually further reducing meat export chances for poor countries. For that reason, Kanya and many other countries find the rules very unjust. They are however discouraged to file a formal complaint with WTO by diplomats from rich countries.

Citrus canker
Citrus canker is a disease affecting citrus species that is caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas axonopodis. The infection causes lesions on the leaves, stems, and fruit of citrus trees, including lime, oranges, and grapefruit. While not harmful to humans, canker significantly affects the vitality of citrus trees, causing leaves and fruit to drop prematurely; a fruit infected with canker is safe to eat but too unsightly to be sold. The disease, which is believed to have originated in South East Asia, is extremely persistent when it becomes established in an area, making it necessary for all citrus orchards to be destroyed for the successful eradication of the disease. Australia, Brazil and the United States are currently experiencing canker outbreaks.

The disease can be detected in orchards and on fruit by the appearance of lesions. Early detection is critical in quarantine situations. Bacteria are tested for pathogenicity by inoculating multiple citrus species with the bacterium. Simultaneously, other diagnostic tests (antibody detection, fatty-acid profiling, and genetic procedures using PCR) are conducted to identify the particular canker strain. Citrus canker outbreaks are prevented and managed in a number of ways. In countries that do not have canker, the disease is prevented from entering the country by quarantine measures. In countries with new outbreaks, eradication programs that are started soon after the disease has been discovered have been successful; such programs rely on the destruction of affected orchards. When eradication has been unsuccessful and the disease has become established, management options include replacing susceptible citrus cultivars with resistant cultivars, applying preventive sprays of copper-based bactericides, and destroying infected trees and all surrounding trees within an appropriate radius.

The citrus industry is the largest fresh-fruit exporting industry in Australia. Australia has had three outbreaks of citrus canker; all three were successfully eradicated. The disease was found twice during the 1900s in the Northern Territory and was eradicated each time. During the first outbreak in 1912, every citrus tree north of latitude 19° south was destroyed, taking 11 years to eradicate the disease. In 2004, Asiatic citrus canker was detected in an orchard in Emerald, Queensland, and was thought to have occurred from the illegal import of infected citrus plants. The state and federal governments have ordered that all commercial orchards, all non-commercial citrus trees, and all native lime trees (C. glauca) in the vicinity of Emerald be destroyed rather than trying to isolate infected trees.

Food security
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines food security as existing when "all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life". The four qualifications that must be met for a food secure system include physical availability, economic and physical access, appropriate utilization, and stability of the prior three elements over time.

Of the 6.7 billion people on the planet, about 2 billion are food insecure. As the global population grows to 9 billion by 2050, and as diets shift to emphasize higher energy products and greater overall consumption, food systems will be subjected to even greater pressure. 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. The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change listed high-priority policy actions to address food security, including integrating food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies, significantly raising the level of global investment in food systems, and developing specific programs and policies to support the most vulnerable populations (namely, those that are already subject to food insecurity).

Food sovereignty
'Food sovereignty', a term coined by members of Via Campesina in 1996, is about the right of peoples to define their own food systems. Advocates of food sovereignty put the people who produce, distribute, and consume food at the centre of decisions on food systems and policies, rather than the demands of markets and corporations that they believe have come to dominate the global food system. This movement is advocated by a number of farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth, and environmental organizations.

Policy tools
An agricultural subsidy is a governmental subsidy paid to farmers and agribusinesses to manage the agricultural industry as one part of the various methods a government uses in a mixed economy. The conditions for payment and the reasons for the individual specific subsidies vary with farm product, size of the farm, nature of ownership, and country among other factors. Enriching peanut farmers for political purposes, keeping the price of a staple low to keep the poor from rebelling, stabilizing the production of a crop to avoid famine years, encouraging diversification and many other purposes have been suggested as the reason for specific subsidies.

Price floors or price ceilings set a minimum or maximum price for a product. Price controls encourage more production by a price floor or less production by a price ceiling. A government can erect trade barriers to limit the number of goods imported (in the case of a Quota Share) or enact tariffs to raise the domestic price of imported products. These barriers give preference to domestic producers.

National security
Some argue that nations have an interest in assuring there is sufficient domestic production capability to meet domestic needs in the event of a global supply disruption. Significant dependence on foreign food producers makes a country strategically vulnerable in the event of war, blockade or embargo. Maintaining adequate domestic capability allows for food self-sufficiency that lessens the risk of supply shocks due to geopolitical events. Agricultural policies may be used to support domestic producers as they gain domestic and international market share. This may be a short term way of encouraging an industry until it is large enough to thrive without aid. Or it may be an ongoing subsidy designed to allow a product to compete with or undercut the foreign competition. This may produce a net gain for a government despite the cost of interventions because it allows a country to build up an export industry or reduce imports. It also helps to form the nation's supply and demand market.

Environmental protection and land management
Farm or undeveloped land composes the majority of land in most countries. Policies may encourage some land uses rather than others in the interest of protecting the environment. For instance, subsidies may be given for particular farming methods, forestation, land clearance, or pollution abatement.

Rural poverty and poverty relief
Subsidising farming may encourage people to remain on the land and obtain some income. This might be relevant to an agrarian country with many peasant farmers, but it may also be a consideration to more developed countries such as Poland. It has a very high unemployment rate, much farmland and retains a large rural population growing food for their own use.

Price controls may also be used to assist poor citizens. 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. This often goes at the cost of the rural poor, who then earn less from what is often their only realistic or potential source of income: agriculture. Because in almost all countries the rural poor are poorer than the urban poor, cheap food policies through price controls often increase overall poverty.

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.

Organic farming assistance
Welfare economics theory holds that sometimes private activities can impose social costs upon others. Industrial agriculture is widely considered to impose social costs through pesticide pollution and nitrate pollution. Further, agriculture uses large amounts of water, a scarce resource. Some economists argue that taxes should be levied on agriculture, or that organic agriculture, which uses little pesticides and experiences relatively little nitrate runoff, should be encouraged with subsidies. In the United States, 65% of the approximately $16.5 billion in annual subsidies went to the top 10% of farmers in 2002 because subsidies are linked to certain commodities. On the other hand, organic farming received $5 million for help in certification and $15 million for research over a 5-year time period.

Fair trade
Some advocate Fair Trade rules to ensure that poor farmers in developing nations that produce crops primarily for export are not exploited or negatively impacted by trade policies, practices, tariffs, and agreements which benefit one competitor at the expense of another - which advocates consider a dangerous "race to the bottom" in agricultural labor and safety standards. 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.

Fair trade steak? Much of what developing countries export to the rich world, also comes from industrial corporations. The reason for that is, that rich countries have put up elaborate quality demands, most of whom make no factual health contribution. Small farmers often in effect meet these demands, but are rarely able to prove that in western standards. 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.

Dumping of agricultural surpluses
In international trade parlance, when a company from country A sells a commodity below the cost of production into country B, this is called "dumping". A number of countries that are signatories to multilateral trade agreements have provisions that prohibit this practice. When rich countries subsidize domestic production, the excess output is often given to the developing world as foreign aid. This process eliminates the domestic market for agricultural products in the developing world because the products can be obtained for free from western aid agencies. In developing nations where these effects are most severe, small farmers could no longer afford basic inputs and were forced to sell their land.

"Consider a farmer in Ghana who used to be able to make a living growing rice. Several years ago, Ghana was able to feed and export their surplus. Now, it imports rice. From where? Developed countries. Why? Because it's cheaper. Even if it costs the rice producer in the developed world much more to produce the rice, he doesn't have to make a profit from his crop. The government pays him to grow it, so he can sell it more cheaply to Ghana than the farmer in Ghana can. And that farmer in Ghana? He can't feed his family anymore." (Lyle Vanclief, former Canadian Minister of Agriculture [1997-2003])

According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat and rice are sold below the cost of production, or dumped. Dumping rates are approximately forty percent for wheat, between twenty-five and thirty percent for corn (maize), approximately thirty percent for soybeans, fifty-seven percent for cotton, and approximately twenty percent for rice. For example, wheat is sold for forty percent below cost.

According to Oxfam, "If developed nations eliminated subsidy programs, the export value of agriculture in lesser developed nations would increase by 24 %, plus a further 5.5 % from tariff equilibrium. ... 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." Free trade advocates desire the elimination of all market distorting mechanisms (subsidies, tariffs, regulations) and argue that, as with free trade in all areas, this will result in aggregate benefit for all. This position is particularly popular in competitive agricultural exporting nations in both the developed and developing world, some of whom have banded together in the Cairns Group lobby. Canada's Department of Agriculture estimates that developing nations would benefit by about $4 billion annually if subsidies in the developed world were halved.

Agricultural independence
Many developing countries do not grow enough food to feed their own populations. These nations must buy food from other countries. Lower prices and free food save the lives of millions of starving people, despite the drop in food sales of the local farmers. A developing nation could use new improved farming methods to grow more food, with the ultimate goal of feeding their nation without outside help. 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. More food can be grown, reducing dependency on other countries for food.

Replacement crops can also make nations agriculturally independent. Sugar, for example, comes from sugar cane imported from Polynesia. Instead of buying the sugar from Polynesia, a nation can make sugar from sugar beets, maple sap, or sweetener from stevia plant, keeping the profits circulating within the nation's economy. Paper and clothes can be made of hemp instead of trees and cotton. Tropical foods won't grow in many places in Europe, but they will grow in insulated greenhouses or tents in Europe. Soybean plant cellulose can replace plastic (made from oil). Ethanol from farm waste or hempseed oil can replace gasoline. Rainforest medicine plants grown locally can replace many imported medicines. Alternates of cash crops, like sugar and oil replacements, can reduce farmers' dependency on subsidies in both developed and developing nations.

Market interventions may increase the cost to consumers for agricultural products, either via hidden wealth-transfers via the government, or increased prices at the consumer level, such as for sugar and peanuts in the US. This has led to market distortions, such as food processors using high fructose corn syrup as a replacement for sugar. High fructose corn syrup may be an unhealthy food additive, and, were sugar prices not inflated by government fiat, sugar might be preferred over high fructose corn syrup in the marketplace.

Agriculture policy design strategy and examples
The concerns of agricultural policies are extensive, and includes ensuring the hygiene of salads, globalization management, and other emerging issues. The majority of the concerns fall into three categories: food supply for a growing population, livelihood insurance for farmers, and environmental protection. The theme of all approaches aiming to address these 3 types of concerns is to have a holistic view of their effects and externalities (a by-product of an action that affects others without their consent), because some policies intended to address one aspect of the concerns may have unintended harmful consequences that worsen other aspects while some have zero or negative beneficial effects. 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. From an opposite perspective, if we protect the natural habitats and tax the agricultural firm for turning natural lands into factories, the prices of their products increase, making the firm's products too expensive for some customers. 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. Consequently, before we resolve this primary fragility of our agriculture system. It's of high cruciality for policymakers to weigh the trade-offs and adopt the most appropriate policies.

There are examples of the agricultural policy design mentioned above that are made by worldwide unions, countries, and states. While every specific situation requires its own specific agricultural policy design, these examples can provide useful models, insights, and lessons for future policymakers' reference and inspiration. The Common Agricultural Policy, published by E.U., uses government subsidies to encourage food production and farming industrialization in its early stage. In some areas, food production boomed so much that enormous food waste became a new problem. With food waste, the market was thrown into imbalance. Consequently, the price drop cost the farmers' utility and has led to a future reform known as the Marsholt Plan. Marsholt Plan and following reforms generally adjusted the agriculture market back to balance. Later reforms managed to spread the fund to farmers and increase each individual farmers' welfare instead of merely expanding croplands and industries. Starting from 2003, the Common Agricultural Policy fund is further detailed into individuals and environmental protection is finally put into consideration.

Overview: Europe and America
The farmer population is approximately five percent of the total population in the E.U. and 1.7% in the U.S. The total value of agricultural production in the E.U. amounted to 128 billion euros (1998). About forty-nine percent of this amount was accounted for by political measures: 37 billion euros due to direct payments and 43 billion euros from consumers due to the artificially high price. Eighty percent of European farmers receive a direct payment of 5,000 euros or less, while 2.2% receive a direct payment above 50,000 euros, totaling forty percent of all direct subsidies.

The average U.S. farmer receives $16,000 in annual subsidies. Two-thirds of farmers receive no direct payments. Of those that do, the average amount amongst the lowest paid eighty percent was $7000 from 1995 to 2003. Subsidies are a mix of tax reductions, direct cash payments and below-market prices on water and other inputs. Some claim that these aggregate figures are misleading because large agribusinesses, rather than individual farmers, receive a significant share of total subsidy spending. The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 reduced farm subsidies, providing fixed payments over a period and replacing price supports and subsidies. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 contains direct and countercyclical payments designed to limit the effects of low prices and yields.

In the EU, €54 billion of subsidies are paid every year. An increasing share of the subsidies is being decoupled from production and lumped into the Single Farm Payment. 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. The next major reform is expected for 2014 when a new long-term EU budget is coming into effect.

Environmental programs
The U.S. Conservation Reserve Program leases land from producers that take marginal land out of production and convert it back to a near-natural state by planting native grasses and other plants. The U.S. Environmental Quality Incentives Program subsidizes improvements which promote water conservation and other measures. This program is conducted under a bidding process using a formula where farmers request a certain percentage of cost share for improvement such as drip irrigation. Producers that offer the most environmental improvement based on a point system for the least cost are funded first. The process continues until that year's allocated funds are expended.

World Trade Organization actions
In April 2004 the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that 3 billion dollars in US cotton subsidies violate trade agreements and that almost 50% of EU sugar exports are illegal. In 1997–2003, US cotton exports were subsidized by an average of 48%. 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. The report estimates that in the absence of trade restrictions, US subsidised maize could be marketed at less than half the price of maize grown on the Philippine island of Mindanao; and that the livelihoods of up to half a million Filipino maize farmers (out of the total 1.2 million) are under immediate threat.

title: Agricultural policy


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Agricultural subsidy

An agricultural subsidy (also called an agricultural incentive) is a government incentive paid to agribusinesses, agricultural organizations and farms to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the cost and supply of such commodities.

Examples of such commodities include: wheat, feed grains (grain used as fodder, such as maize or corn, sorghum, barley and oats), cotton, milk, rice, peanuts, sugar, tobacco, oilseeds such as soybeans and meat products such as beef, pork, and lamb and mutton.

A 2021 study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization found $540 billion was given to farmers every year between 2013 and 2018 in global subsidies. The study found these subsidies are harmful in numerous ways. In wealthy countries, they damage health by promoting the overconsumption of meat.

In under-developed countries they encourage overconsumption of low-nutrition staples, such as rice. Subsidies also contribute to the climate crisis, by encouraging deforestation; and they also drive inequality because smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, are excluded. According to UNDP head, Achim Steiner, redirecting subsidies would boost the livelihoods of 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide by creating a more level playing field with large-scale agricultural enterprises. A separate report, by the World Resources Institute in August 2021, said without reform, farm subsidies "will render vast expanses of healthy land useless".

History
On the earliest known interventions in farming markets was the English Corn Laws, which regulated the import and export of grain in Great Britain and Ireland for centuries. The laws were repealed in 1846. Agricultural subsidies in the twentieth century were originally designed to stabilize markets, help low-income farmers, and aid rural development. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as part of the New Deal in 1933. At the time the economy was in a severe depression and farmers were experiencing the lowest agricultural prices since the 1890s. The plan was to increase prices for a range of agricultural products by paying farmers to destroy some of their livestock or not use some of their land - known as land idling. This led to a reduction in supply and smaller agricultural surpluses. Initially seven products were controlled: (corn, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, tobacco and milk). Unlike traditional subsidies that promote the growth of products, this process boosted agricultural prices by limiting the growth of these crops.

In Europe, Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was launched in 1962 to improve agricultural productivity. According to the European Commission, the act aims to

 * Support farmers and improve agricultural productivity, so that consumers have a stable supply of affordable food
 * Ensure that European Union (EU) farmers can make a reasonable living
 * Help tackling climate change and the sustainable management of natural resources
 * Maintain rural areas and landscapes across the EU
 * Keep the rural economy alive by promoting jobs in farming, agri-foods industries and associated sectors

Canada
Canadian agricultural subsidies are currently controlled by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Financial subsidies are offered through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership Programs. The Canadian Agricultural Partnership began in April 2018 and is planned to take place over five years with a combined federal, provincial and territorial investment of three billion dollars. Some programs offered surround issues including AgriAssurance, agricultural leveraging programs, promoting diversity in agriculture, crop and livestock insurance, marketing activities, risk mitigation, and more. Before the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, agricultural subsidies were organized under the Growing Forward 2 partnership from 2013 to 2018.

European Union
In 2010, the EU spent €57 billion on agricultural development, of which €39 billion was spent on direct subsidies. Agricultural and fisheries subsidies form over 40% of the EU budget. Since 1992 (and especially since 2005), the EU's Common Agricultural Policy has undergone significant change as subsidies have mostly been decoupled from production. The largest subsidy is the Single Farm Payment.

Malawi
Increases in food and fertilizer prices have underlined the vulnerability of poor urban and rural households in many developing countries, especially in Africa, renewing policymakers' focus on the need to increase staple food crop productivity.

A study by the Overseas Development Institute evaluates the benefits of the Malawi Government Agricultural Inputs Subsidy Programme, which was implemented in 2006–2007 to promote access to and use of fertilizers in both maize and tobacco production to increase agricultural productivity and food security. The subsidy was implemented by means of a coupon system which could be redeemed by the recipients for fertilizer types at approximately one-third of the normal cash price. According to policy conclusions of the Overseas Development Institute the voucher for coupon system can be an effective way of rationing and targeting subsidy access to maximize production and economic and social gains. Many practical and political challenges remain in the program design and implementation required to increase efficiency, control costs, and limit patronage and fraud.

New Zealand
New Zealand is reputed to have the most open agricultural markets in the world  after radical reforms started in 1984 by the Fourth Labour Government stopped all subsidies.

"In 1984 New Zealand's Labor government took the dramatic step of ending all farm subsidies, which then consisted of 30 separate production payments and export incentives. This was a truly striking policy action, because New Zealand's economy is roughly five times more dependent on farming than is the U.S. economy, measured by either output or employment. Subsidies in New Zealand accounted for more than 30 percent of the value of production before reform, somewhat higher than U.S. subsidies today. And New Zealand farming was marred by the same problems caused by U.S. subsidies, including overproduction, environmental degradation and inflated land prices."

As the country is a large agricultural exporter, continued subsidies by other countries are a long-standing bone of contention, with New Zealand being a founding member of the 20-member Cairns Group fighting to improve market access for exported agricultural goods.

United States
The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, also known as the 2002 Farm Bill, addressed a great variety of issues related to agriculture, ecology, energy, trade, and nutrition. Signed after the September 11th attacks of 2001, the act directs approximately $16.5 billion of government funding toward agricultural subsidies each year. This funding has had a great effect on the production of grains, oilseeds, and upland cotton. The United States paid allegedly around $20 billion in 2005 to farmers in direct subsidies as "farm income stabilization"  via farm bills. Overall agricultural subsidies in 2010 were estimated at $172 billion by a European agricultural industry association; however, the majority of this estimate consists of food stamps and other consumer subsidies, so it is not comparable to the 2005 estimate.

Agricultural policies of the United States are changed, incrementally or more radically, by Farm Bills that are passed every five years or so. Statements about how the program works might be right at one point in time, at best, but are probably not sufficient for assessing agricultural policies at other points in time. For example, a large part of the support to program crops has not been linked directly to current output since the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104–127). Instead, these payments were tied to historical entitlement, not current planting. For example, it is incorrect to attribute a payment associated with the wheat base area to wheat production now because that land might be allocated to any of a number of permitted uses, including held idle. Over time, successive Farm Bills have linked these direct payments to market prices or revenue, but not to production. In contrast, some programs, like the Marketing Loan Program that can create something of a floor price that producers receive per unit sold, are tied to production. That is, if the price of wheat in 2002 was $3.80, farmers would get an extra 58¢ per bushel (52¢ plus the 6¢ price difference). Fruit and vegetable crops are not eligible for subsidies.

Corn was the top crop for subsidy payments prior to 2011. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into vehicle fuel each year, guaranteeing demand, but US corn ethanol subsidies were between $5.5 billion and $7.3 billion per year. Producers also benefited from a federal subsidy of 51 cents per gallon, additional state subsidies, and federal crop subsidies that had brought the total to 85 cents per gallon or more. However, the federal ethanol subsidy expired 31 December 2011.

Asia
Farm subsidies in Asia remain a point of contention in global trade talks.

China
In 2016, China provided $212 billion in agricultural subsidies. In 2018, China increased their subsidies for soybean farmers in their northeastern provinces. Corn farmers, however, received reduced subsidies due to Beijing's 2017 policy that set out to reduce its huge stockpile. Soybean farmers in Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Inner Mongolia provinces will receive more subsidies from Beijing than corn farmers. The cutting of corn acreage and the lifting of soybean acreage came in 2016 as a push from China to re-balance grain stocks. Subsidies for agriculture machinery and equipment will also be provided by Beijing to farmers.

Indonesia
In 1971, as a method of expanding the rice supply in Indonesia, the government began subsidizing fertilizer to farmers after the discovery and introduction of new, high-yielding rice varieties. In 2012, Indonesia provided $28 billion in agricultural subsidies.

Japan
Over the 2000s, Japan has been reforming its generous agricultural subsidy regime to support more business-oriented farmers. Yet, subsidies remain high in international comparison. In 2009, Japan paid US$46.5 billion in subsidies to its farmers, and continued state support of farmers in Japan remains a controversial topic. In 2012, Japan provided $65 billion in agricultural subsidies.

South Korea
South Korea has made attempts to reform its agricultural sector, despite resistance from vested interests. In 2012, South Korea provided approximately $20 billion in agricultural subsidies.

India
Agricultural subsidy in India primarily consists of subsidies like, fertilizer, irrigation, equipment, credit subsidy, seed subsidy, export subsidy etc. Subsidy on fertilizers is provided by the Central government whereas subsidy on water and irrigation is provided by the local State governments. Drawing on the most recent estimates, annual central government subsidies to farmers would be of the order of inr 1205000000000 as the sum of fertilizer subsidies (inr 700000000000, 2017/18), credit subsidies (inr 200000000000, 2017/18), crop insurance subsidies (inr 65000000000, 2018/19) and expenditures towards price support (inr 240000000000 estimated for 2016/17). Total subsidies to farmers in India is in the range of $45 billion to 50 billion, to the tune of 2%-2.5% of GDP. But per farmer the subsidy just about touches $48 in India, compared to over $7,000 in the U.S.

Armenia
Direct subsidies, of the Ministry of Agriculture, include subsidies for fertilizers, improved seed, agricultural chemicals, and fuel. The purpose of subsidies is to aid the smallest farmers in the sector. In particular, the maximum loan size for interest subsidies is minimal, and only farms with less than 3 ha are eligible for fuel, fertilizer, chemical, and seed subsidies. For loans of up to 3 million drams (about US$6,185 at current exchange rates), subsidies decrease interest rates from 10%–12% to 4%–6% in an effort to support Armenia's smaller farms.

Global food prices and international trade
Although some critics and proponents of the World Trade Organization have noted that export subsidies, by driving down the price of commodities, can provide cheap food for consumers in developing countries, low prices are harmful to farmers not receiving the subsidy. Because it is usually wealthy countries that can afford domestic subsidies, critics argue that they promote poverty in developing countries by artificially driving down world crop prices.

Generally, developing countries have a comparative advantage in producing agricultural goods, but low crop prices encourage developing countries to be dependent buyers of food from wealthy countries. So local farmers, instead of improving the agricultural and economic self-sufficiency of their home country, are forced out of the market and perhaps even off their land. This occurs as a result of a process known as "international dumping" in which subsidized farmers are able to "dump" low-cost agricultural goods on foreign markets at costs that un-subsidized farmers cannot compete with. Agricultural subsidies often are a common stumbling block in trade negotiations. In 2006, talks at the Doha round of WTO trade negotiations stalled because the US refused to cut subsidies to a level where other countries' non-subsidized exports would have been competitive.

Others argue that a world market with farm subsidies and other market distortions (as happens today) results in higher food prices, rather than lower food prices, as compared to a free market.

In 2002 Mark Malloch Brown, former head of the United Nations Development Programme, estimated that farm subsidies cost poor countries about US$50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports:

"It is the extraordinary distortion of global trade, where the West spends $360 billion a year on protecting its agriculture with a network of subsidies and tariffs that costs developing countries about US$50 billion in potential lost agricultural exports. Fifty billion dollars is the equivalent of today's level of development assistance."

Poverty in developing countries
The impact of agricultural subsidies in developed countries upon developing-country farmers and international development is well documented. Agricultural subsidies can help drive prices down to benefit consumers, but also mean that unsubsidised developing-country farmers have a more difficult time competing in the world market; and the effects on poverty are particularly negative when subsidies are provided for crops that are also grown in developing countries since developing-country farmers must then compete directly with subsidised developed-country farmers, for example in cotton and sugar. The IFPRI has estimated in 2003 that the impact of subsidies costs developing countries $24 billion in lost incomes going to agricultural and agro-industrial production; and more than $40 billion is displaced from net agricultural exports. Moreover, the same study found that the least developed countries have a higher proportion of GDP dependent upon agriculture, at around 36.7%, thus may be even more vulnerable to the effects of subsidies. It has been argued that subsidised agriculture in the developed world is one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth in the developing world; which has an indirect impact on reducing the income available to invest in rural infrastructure such as health, safe water supplies and electricity for the rural poor. The total amount of subsidies that go towards agriculture in OECD countries far exceeds the amount that countries provide in development aid. In the case of Africa, it is estimated that a 1% increase in its total agricultural exports could lift its GDP by $70 billion, nearly five times what the region is provided in total foreign aid.

Haiti and US rice imports
Haiti is an excellent example of a developing country negatively affected by agricultural subsidies in the developed world. Haiti is a nation with the capacity to produce rice and was at one time self-sufficient in meeting its own needs. At present, Haiti does not produce enough to feed its people; 60 percent of the food consumed in the country is imported. Following advice to liberalize its economy by lowering tariffs, domestically produced rice was displaced by cheaper subsidized rice from the United States. The Food and Agriculture Organization describes this liberalization process as being the removal of barriers to trade and a simplification of tariffs, which lowers costs to consumers and promotes efficiency among producers.

Opening up Haiti's economy granted consumers access to food at a lower cost; allowing foreign producers to compete for the Haitian market drove down the price of rice. However, for Haitian rice farmers without access to subsidies, the downward pressure on prices led to a decline in profits. Subsidies received by American rice farmers, plus increased efficiencies, made it impossible for their Haitian counterparts to compete. According to Oxfam and the International Monetary Fund, tariffs on imports fell from 50 percent to three percent in 1995 and the nation is currently importing 80 percent of the rice it consumes.

The United States Department of Agriculture notes that since 1980, rice production in Haiti has been largely unchanged, while consumption on the other hand, is roughly eight times what it was in that same year. Haiti is among the top three consumers of long grain milled rice produced in the United States.

As rice farmers struggled to compete, many migrated from rural to urban areas in search of alternative economic opportunities.

Impact on nutrition
One peer-reviewed research suggests that any effects of US farm policies on US obesity patterns must have been negligible. However, some critics argue that the artificially low prices resulting from subsidies create unhealthy incentives for consumers. For example, in the US, cane sugar was replaced with cheap corn syrup, making high-sugar food cheaper; beet and cane sugar are subject to subsidies, price controls, and import tariffs that distort the prices of these products as well.

The lower price of energy-dense foods such as grains and sugars could be one reason why low-income people and food insecure people in industrialized countries are more vulnerable to being overweight and obese. According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, meat and dairy production receive 63% of subsidies in the United States, as well as sugar subsidies for unhealthy foods, which contribute to heart disease, obesity and diabetes, with enormous costs for the health sector.

Market distortions due to subsidies have led to an increase in corn fed cattle rather than grass fed. Corn fed cattle require more antibiotics and their beef has a higher fat content.

Cross-border movement of businesses
Tariffs on sugar have also caused large candy makers in the US to relocate to Canada and Mexico, where sugar is often half to a third the price. The Dominican Republic Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), though, has had little impact in this area. The sugar issue causing alarm had reasoning due to what plausible effects could come through the tariffs as well as the undetermined future of these types of negotiations considering sugar importation in the United States. Due to various continuing disputes in trade, Mexico began to have fewer exports of sugar into the United States, where the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allowed. Those who left and sought out other companies for sugar have leaned marginally more towards Canada than Mexico. The tariffs are what keeps the large pressure from competition from south of the Rio Grande at bay.

Non-farming companies
Subsidies are also given to companies and individuals with little connection to traditional farming. It has been reported that the largest part of the sum given to these companies flow to multinational companies like food conglomerates, sugar manufacturers and liquor distillers. For example, in France, the single largest beneficiary was the chicken processor Groupe Doux, at €62.8m, and was followed by about a dozen sugar manufacturers which together reaped more than €103m.

Public economics implications
Government intervention, through agricultural subsidies, interferes with the price mechanism which would normally determine commodity prices, often creating crop overproduction and market discrimination.

Journalist Michael Pollan argues that corn became a prime crop for over-production (and thus subsidies) due to it having a wide genetic variability and flexibility; historical uses of corn as food and as a commodity fueled its growth with capitalism. As a result of overproduction and falling prices, farmers were subsidized with direct payments from the government. The pressure to produce massive swaths of corn, however, resulted in farmers tending to monocrop agriculture. As Pollan argues, this not only pushed many small farms out of business, but also resulted in paradoxical "food deserts".

Subsidies are also an inefficient use of taxpayer's money. For instance, in 2006, the Department of Agriculture estimated that the average farm household income was $77,654 or about 17% higher than the average US household income. From a public economics perspective, subsidies of any kind work to create a socially and politically acceptable equilibrium that is not necessarily Pareto efficient.

Environmental implications
A study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization found 87% of the $540bn farmers given every year between 2013 and 2018 in global subsidies are harmful to both people and environment. The monoculture system associated with subsidized large-scale production has been implicated as a contributory factor in Colony Collapse Disorder which has affected bee populations. Bee pollination is an essential ecosystem service essential for the production of many varieties of fruits and vegetables. Subsidies often go towards subsidising meat production which has other nutritional and environmental implications; and it has been found that out of the $200Bn subsidies to subsidise crops from 1995 to 2010 around two-thirds of this went to animal feed, tobacco and cotton production. On the other hand, farmers producing fruits and vegetables received no direct subsidies. The environmental impact of meat production is high due to the resource and energy requirements that go into production of feed for livestock throughout their lifespan, for example, a kilogram of beef uses about 60 times as much water as an equivalent amount of potato. The subsidies contribute to meat consumption by allowing for an artificially low cost of meat products.

Alternatives
Liberals argue that subsidies distort incentives for the global trade of agricultural commodities in which other countries may have a comparative advantage. Allowing countries to specialize in commodities in which they have a comparative advantage in and then freely trade across borders would therefore increase global welfare and reduce food prices. Ending direct payments to farmers and deregulating the farm industry would eliminate inefficiencies and deadweight loss created by government intervention.

However, others disagree, arguing that a more radical transformation of agriculture is needed, one guided by the notion that ecological change in agriculture cannot be promoted without comparable changes in the social, political, cultural and economic arenas that conform and determine agriculture. The organized peasant and indigenous based agrarian movements, e.g. Via Campesina, take action by arguing that only by changing the export-led, free-trade based, industrial agriculture model of large farms can halt what they call the downward spiral of poverty, low wages, rural-urban migration, hunger and environmental degradation.

title: Agricultural subsidy


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Heraclides Ponticus

Heraclides Ponticus (Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός Herakleides; c. 390 BC – c. 310 BC) was a Greek philosopher and astronomer who was born in Heraclea Pontica, now Karadeniz Ereğli, Turkey, and migrated to Athens. He is best remembered for proposing that the Earth rotates on its axis, from west to east, once every 24 hours. He is also hailed as the originator of the heliocentric theory; although this is disputed.

Life
Heraclides' father was Euthyphron, a wealthy nobleman who sent his son to study at the Platonic Academy in Athens under its founder Plato and under his successor Speusippus. According to the Suda, Plato, on his departure for Sicily in 361/360 BC, left the Academy in the charge of Heraclides. Heraclides was nearly elected successor to Speusippus as head of the academy in 339/338 BC, but narrowly lost to Xenocrates.

All of Heraclides' writings have been lost; only a few fragments remain. Like the Pythagoreans Hicetas and Ecphantus, Heraclides proposed that the apparent daily motion of the stars was created by the rotation of the Earth on its axis once a day. This view contradicted the accepted Aristotelian model of the universe, which said that the Earth was fixed and that the stars and planets in their respective spheres might also be fixed. Simplicius says that Heraclides proposed that the irregular movements of the planets can be explained if the Earth moves while the Sun stays still.

Although some historians have proposed that Heraclides taught that Venus and Mercury revolve around the Sun, a detailed investigation of the sources has shown that "nowhere in the ancient literature mentioning Heraclides of Pontus is there a clear reference for his support for any kind of heliocentrical planetary position".

A punning on his name, dubbing him Heraclides "Pompicus," suggests he may have been a rather vain and pompous man and the target of much ridicule. Diogenes Laërtius, citing Aristoxenus as his source, states that Heraclides forged plays under the name of Thespis, and further states that Camaeleon claimed that Heraclides had plagiarised commentaries on Hesiod and Homer from him. Laërtius also conveys a story in which Dionysius the Deserter fooled Heraclides by forging a play, Parthenopaeus, under the name of Sophocles. Heraclides was deceived by this easily and cited it as the work of Sophocles. However, Heraclides seems to have been a versatile and prolific writer on philosophy, mathematics, music, grammar, physics, history and rhetoric, notwithstanding doubts about attribution of many of the works. It appears that he composed various works in dialogue form.

Heraclides also seems to have had an interest in the occult. In particular he focused on explaining trances, visions and prophecies in terms of the retribution of the gods, and reincarnation.

A quote of Heraclides, of particular significance to historians, is his statement that fourth century B.C. Rome was a Greek city.

Heraclides Ponticus refers with much admiration that Pythagoras would remember having been Pirro and before Euphorbus and before some other mortal.

title: Heraclides Ponticus


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J. Russel Robinson

Joseph Russel Robinson (July 8, 1892 – September 30, 1963) was an American ragtime, dixieland, and blues pianist and composer. He was a member of the Original Dixieland Jass Band.

Career
Robinson was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. In his teens he worked as a pianist in theaters to provide music for silent movies. With a right arm that was damaged by polio, he formed unusual techniques with his left hand. With his brother John, a drummer, he toured the southern United States in the early 1910s with an extended stay in New Orleans.

He started publishing compositions in his teens; his early hits included "Sapho Rag" and "Eccentric". His compositions were published as piano rolls by Imperial, the United Music Company, and QRS. He signed a contract with QRS to record blues songs from 1918 to 1921. He worked as a manager for the publishing company owned by W.C. Handy.

Robinson became a member of the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1919, replacing on piano Henry Ragas, who died on February 18, 1919, in the flu epidemic. Aside from the band, in the early to middle 1920s he played piano for vocalists such as Lizzie Miles and Lucille Hegamin. In the 1930s he became the head of NBC Radio's music department and was a major factor in reuniting the now scattered band. The reunion in 1936 yielded six RCA Victor recordings as "The Original Dixieland Five," several network radio appearances (one with Benny Goodman), and an appearance in a "March of Time" movie short, with J. Russel Robinson speaking on-camera.

At the end of the decade Robinson moved to California and continued to write songs.

Selected Discography
Source:

 * Original Dixieland Jazz Band- Margie (1920), Victor
 * Original Dixieland Jazz Band- Palesteena (1920), Victor
 * Aileen Stanley- Singin' the Blues (1920), Victor
 * Bessie Smith and the Down Home Trio- Aggravatin' Papa (1923), Victor
 * Bessie Smith and the Down Home Trio- Beale Street Mamma (1923), Columbia
 * Ted Weems Orchestra- Blue Eyed Sally (1924), Victor
 * Ted Lewis Jazz Band- Eccentric (1924), Victor
 * Joe Candullo and His Orchestra & Irving Kaufman- Go Wash an Elephant (If You Want to Do Something Big)           (1927), Columbia
 * Seger Ellis- Memories of France (1928), Columbia
 * Claude Jones, Harlan Lattimore, & Connie's Inn Orchestra- Reefer Man (1932), Columbia
 * Benny Goodman Orchestra- Margie (1938), Victor

Awards and honors
"Singin' the Blues" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in a 1927 recording by Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke on cornet.

title: J. Russel Robinson


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Tautochrone curve

A tautochrone curve or isochrone curve is the curve for which the time taken by an object sliding without friction in uniform gravity to its lowest point is independent of its starting point on the curve. The curve is a cycloid, and the time is equal to π times the square root of the radius (of the circle which generates the cycloid) over the acceleration of gravity. The tautochrone curve is related to the brachistochrone curve, which is also a cycloid.

The tautochrone problem

The tautochrone problem, the attempt to identify this curve, was solved by Christiaan Huygens in 1659. He proved geometrically in his Horologium Oscillatorium, originally published in 1673, that the curve is a cycloid.

"On a cycloid whose axis is erected on the perpendicular and whose vertex is located at the bottom, the times of descent, in which a body arrives at the lowest point at the vertex after having departed from any point on the cycloid, are equal to each other ..."

The cycloid is given by a point on a circle of radius $$r$$ tracing a curve as the circle rolls along the $$x$$ axis, as: $$\begin{align} x &= r(\theta - \sin \theta) \\ y &= r(1 - \cos \theta), \end{align}$$

Huygens also proved that the time of descent is equal to the time a body takes to fall vertically the same distance as diameter of the circle that generates the cycloid, multiplied by $$\pi / 2$$. In modern terms, this means that the time of descent is $\pi \sqrt{r/g}$, where $$r$$ is the radius of the circle which generates the cycloid, and $$g$$ is the gravity of Earth, or more accurately, the earth's gravitational acceleration.

This solution was later used to solve the problem of the brachistochrone curve. Johann Bernoulli solved the problem in a paper (Acta Eruditorum, 1697).

The tautochrone problem was studied by Huygens more closely when it was realized that a pendulum, which follows a circular path, was not isochronous and thus his pendulum clock would keep different time depending on how far the pendulum swung. After determining the correct path, Christiaan Huygens attempted to create pendulum clocks that used a string to suspend the bob and curb cheeks near the top of the string to change the path to the tautochrone curve. These attempts proved unhelpful for a number of reasons. First, the bending of the string causes friction, changing the timing. Second, there were much more significant sources of timing errors that overwhelmed any theoretical improvements that traveling on the tautochrone curve helps. Finally, the "circular error" of a pendulum decreases as length of the swing decreases, so better clock escapements could greatly reduce this source of inaccuracy.

Later, the mathematicians Joseph Louis Lagrange and Leonhard Euler provided an analytical solution to the problem.

Lagrangian solution
If the particle's position is parametrized by the arclength $s(t)$ from the lowest point, the kinetic energy is proportional to $$\dot{s}^2.$$ The potential energy is proportional to the height $y(s)$. One way the curve can be an isochrone is if the Lagrangian is that of a simple harmonic oscillator: the height of the curve must be proportional to the arclength squared.

$ y(s) = s^2, $

where the constant of proportionality has been set to 1 by changing units of length.

The differential form of this relation is

$\begin{align} dy &= 2s \,ds, \\ dy^2 &= 4s^2 \,ds^2 = 4y \left(dx^2 + dy^2\right), \end{align}$

which eliminates $s$, and leaves a differential equation for $dx$ and $dy$. To find the solution, integrate for $x$ in terms of $y$:

$\begin{align} \frac{dx}{dy} &= \frac{\sqrt{1-4y}}{2\sqrt{y}}, \\ x &= \int \sqrt{1-4u^2} \, du, \end{align}$|undefined

where $$u = \sqrt{y}$$. This integral is the area under a circle, which can be naturally cut into a triangle and a circular wedge:

$\begin{align} x &= \tfrac{1}{2} u \sqrt{1 - 4u^2} + \tfrac{1}{4} \arcsin 2u, \\ y &= u^2. \end{align}$

To see that this is a strangely parametrized cycloid, change variables to disentangle the transcendental and algebraic parts by defining the angle $$\theta = \arcsin 2u$$. This yields

$\begin{align} 8x &= 2\sin\theta \cos\theta + 2\theta = \sin 2\theta + 2\theta, \\ 8y &= 2\sin^2 \theta = 1 - \cos 2\theta, \end{align}$

which is the standard parametrization, except for the scale of $x, y$ and $θ$.

"Virtual gravity" solution
The simplest solution to the tautochrone problem is to note a direct relation between the angle of an incline and the gravity felt by a particle on the incline. A particle on a 90° vertical incline undergoes full gravitational acceleration $$g$$, while a particle on a horizontal plane undergoes zero gravitational acceleration. At intermediate angles, the acceleration due to "virtual gravity" by the particle is $$g\sin\theta$$. Note that $$\theta$$ is measured between the tangent to the curve and the horizontal, with angles above the horizontal being treated as positive angles. Thus, $$\theta$$ varies from $$-\pi/2$$ to $$\pi/2$$.

The position of a mass measured along a tautochrone curve, $$s(t)$$, must obey the following differential equation:

$\frac{d^2s}{{dt}^2} = - \omega^2s$|undefined

which, along with the initial conditions $$s(0)=s_0$$ and $$s'(0)=0$$, has solution:

$s(t) = s_0 \cos \omega t $

It can be easily verified both that this solution solves the differential equation and that a particle will reach $$s=0$$ at time $$\pi/2\omega$$ from any starting position $$s_0$$. The problem is now to construct a curve that will cause the mass to obey the above motion. Newton's second law shows that the force of gravity and the acceleration of the mass are related by:

$ \begin{align} -g \sin \theta & = \frac{d^2s}{{dt}^2} \\ & = - \omega^2 s \, \end{align} $|undefined

The explicit appearance of the distance, $$s$$, is troublesome, but we can differentiate to obtain a more manageable form:

$\begin{align} g \cos \theta \,d\theta &= \omega^2 \,ds \\ \Longrightarrow ds &= \frac{g}{\omega^2} \cos \theta \,d\theta \end{align}$

This equation relates the change in the curve's angle to the change in the distance along the curve. We now use trigonometry to relate the angle $$\theta$$ to the differential lengths $$dx$$, $$dy$$ and $$ds$$:

$ \begin{align} ds = \frac{dx}{\cos \theta} \\ ds = \frac{dy}{\sin \theta} \end{align} $

Replacing $$ds$$ with $$dx$$ in the above equation lets us solve for $$x$$ in terms of $$\theta$$:

$ \begin{align} ds & = \frac{g}{\omega^2} \cos \theta \,d\theta \\ \frac{dx}{\cos\theta} & = \frac{g}{\omega^2} \cos \theta\, d\theta \\ dx & = \frac{g}{\omega^2} \cos^2 \theta \,d\theta \\ & = \frac{g}{2 \omega^2} \left ( \cos 2 \theta + 1 \right ) d\theta \\ x & = \frac{g}{4 \omega^2} \left ( \sin 2 \theta + 2 \theta \right ) + C_x \end{align} $

Likewise, we can also express $$ds$$ in terms of $$dy$$ and solve for $$y$$ in terms of $$\theta$$:

$ \begin{align} ds & = \frac{g}{\omega^2} \cos \theta \,d\theta \\ \frac{dy}{\sin\theta} & = \frac{g}{\omega^2} \cos \theta\, d\theta \\ dy & = \frac{g}{\omega^2} \sin \theta \cos \theta \,d\theta \\ & = \frac{g}{2\omega^2} \sin 2 \theta \,d\theta \\ y & = -\frac{g}{4\omega^2} \cos 2 \theta + C_y \end{align} $

Substituting $$\phi = 2\theta$$ and $r = \frac{g}{4\omega^2}\,$, we see that these parametric equations for $$x$$ and $$y$$ are those of a point on a circle of radius $$r$$ rolling along a horizontal line (a cycloid), with the circle center at the coordinates $$(C_x + r\phi, C_y)$$:

$ \begin{align} x & = r \left( \sin \phi + \phi \right) + C_x \\ y & = -r \cos \phi + C_y \end{align} $

Note that $$\phi$$ ranges from $$-\pi \le \phi \le \pi$$. It is typical to set $$C_x = 0$$ and $$C_y = r$$ so that the lowest point on the curve coincides with the origin. Therefore:

$ \begin{align} x & = r \left( \phi + \sin \phi\right)\\ y & = r \left( 1 - \cos \phi\right)\\ \end{align} $

Solving for $$\omega$$ and remembering that $$T = \frac{\pi}{2\omega}$$ is the time required for descent, being a quarter of a whole cycle, we find the descent time in terms of the radius $$r$$:

$ \begin{align} r & = \frac{g}{4\omega^2} \\ \omega & = \frac{1}{2} \sqrt{\frac{g}{r}} \\ T & = \pi \sqrt{\frac{r}{g}}\\ \end{align} $|undefined

(Based loosely on Proctor, pp. 135–139)

Abel's solution
Niels Henrik Abel attacked a generalized version of the tautochrone problem (Abel's mechanical problem), namely, given a function $$T(y)$$ that specifies the total time of descent for a given starting height, find an equation of the curve that yields this result. The tautochrone problem is a special case of Abel's mechanical problem when $$T(y)$$ is a constant.

Abel's solution begins with the principle of conservation of energy – since the particle is frictionless, and thus loses no energy to heat, its kinetic energy at any point is exactly equal to the difference in gravitational potential energy from its starting point. The kinetic energy is $\frac{1}{2} mv^2$, and since the particle is constrained to move along a curve, its velocity is simply $${d\ell}/{dt}$$, where $$\ell$$ is the distance measured along the curve. Likewise, the gravitational potential energy gained in falling from an initial height $$y_0$$ to a height $$y$$ is $$mg(y_0 - y)$$, thus:

$ \begin{align} \frac{1}{2} m \left ( \frac{d\ell}{dt} \right ) ^2 & = mg(y_0-y) \\ \frac{d\ell}{dt} & = \pm \sqrt{2g(y_0-y)} \\ dt & = \pm \frac{d\ell}{\sqrt{2g(y_0-y)}} \\ dt & = - \frac{1}{\sqrt{2g(y_0-y)}} \frac{d\ell}{dy} \,dy \end{align} $|undefined

In the last equation, we have anticipated writing the distance remaining along the curve as a function of height ($$\ell(y))$$, recognized that the distance remaining must decrease as time increases (thus the minus sign), and used the chain rule in the form $d\ell = \frac{d\ell}{dy} dy$.

Now we integrate from $$y = y_0$$ to $$y = 0$$ to get the total time required for the particle to fall:

$ T(y_0) = \int_{y=y_0}^{y=0} \, dt = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2g}} \int_0^{y_0} \frac{1}{\sqrt{y_0-y}} \frac{d\ell}{dy} \, dy $|undefined

This is called Abel's integral equation and allows us to compute the total time required for a particle to fall along a given curve (for which $${d\ell}/{dy}$$ would be easy to calculate). But Abel's mechanical problem requires the converse – given $$T(y_0)\,$$, we wish to find $$f(y) = {d\ell}/{dy}$$, from which an equation for the curve would follow in a straightforward manner. To proceed, we note that the integral on the right is the convolution of $${d\ell}/{dy}$$ with $${1}/{\sqrt{y}}$$ and thus take the Laplace transform of both sides with respect to variable $$y$$:

$ \mathcal{L}[T(y_0)] = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2g}} \mathcal{L} \left [ \frac{1}{\sqrt{y}} \right ]F(s) $|undefined

where $$F(s) = \mathcal{L} {\left[ {d\ell}/{dy} \right ]}$$. Since $\mathcal{L} {\left[ {1}/{\sqrt{y}} \right]} = \sqrt{{\pi}/{s}}$, we now have an expression for the Laplace transform of $${d\ell}/{dy}$$ in terms of the Laplace transform of $$T(y_0)$$:

$ \mathcal{L}\left [ \frac{d\ell}{dy} \right ] = \sqrt{\frac{2g}{\pi}} s^{\frac{1}{2}} \mathcal{L}[T(y_0)] $|undefined

This is as far as we can go without specifying $$T(y_0)$$. Once $$T(y_0)$$ is known, we can compute its Laplace transform, calculate the Laplace transform of $${d\ell}/{dy}$$ and then take the inverse transform (or try to) to find $${d\ell}/{dy}$$.

For the tautochrone problem, $$T(y_0) = T_0\,$$ is constant. Since the Laplace transform of 1 is $${1}/{s}$$, i.e., $\mathcal{L}[T(y_0)] = {T_0}/{s}$, we find the shape function $f(y) = {d\ell}/{dy}$ :

$ \begin{align} F(s) = \mathcal{L} {\left [ \frac{d\ell}{dy} \right ]} & = \sqrt{\frac{2g}{\pi}} s^{\frac{1}{2}} \mathcal{L}[T_0] \\ & = \sqrt{\frac{2g}{\pi}} T_0 s^{-\frac{1}{2}} \end{align} $|undefined

Making use again of the Laplace transform above, we invert the transform and conclude:

$\frac{d\ell}{dy} = T_0 \frac{\sqrt{2g}}{\pi}\frac{1}{\sqrt{y}}$|undefined

It can be shown that the cycloid obeys this equation. It needs one step further to do the integral with respect to $$y$$ to obtain the expression of the path shape.

(Simmons, Section 54).

title: Tautochrone curve