Out of the laboratory and into policy-makers minds

By Samaya El Hajj Hassan

One would wonder, how are agricultural and environmental policies formulated? Who should be in charge of proposing? How involved are public research institutions? Should it be limited to the stakeholders or should the farmers be involved through a bottom-up approach, and to what extent? And how to ensure a fair policy especially in the case of taxation? Many authors have argued that in the cases where farmers were displeased with a policy to take place, the latter would most often turn out ill-fated. Especially in the case of non-site-specific policies where farmers differ in farm size, resource availability, knowledge and technology accessibility as well as physical conditions. Keeping in view, the administrative burdens that go along with complying with a certain policy as well as the monitoring and enforcing that follows its adoption. Many challenges face policy-makers in a complex agricultural production system, but in my opinion, to keep a policy fair and equal remains the most difficult.