The political economy of the emergent agri-environmental transition in the U.S.

Abstract

This article is an assessment of the latest 20th Century American farm bill [the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996] in the context of the current agri-environmental transition. The arguments are organized as answers to four basic questions: (1) What is the emergent agri-environmental transition? (2) How is it manifesting itself in the US? (3) Why is the 1996 farm bill so important? (4) What are its key provisions?