Chicago-turabian (author-date option)
ABIZ 3500—Agricultural and Food Policy
Policy Brief Assignment
Pick a recent article from one of the farm papers (Manitoba Cooperator, Western Producer, etc.),
a business magazine (Canadian Business, etc.), or a newspaper. The article should have an
agricultural or food policy angle. The article might deal with a policy that is already in place,
one that is being considered, or one that you believe could be implemented to alleviate a market
failure.
Write a short essay using the tools of economic analysis that you have learned in this class (or
others) to examine the policy. This is not an opinion piece.
Your essay should include a short description of the rationale for the policy, the major
stakeholders affected by the policy, and an economic analysis of who benefits and who loses due
to the policy. Do you expect this policy to succeed? Are there significant knowledge gaps that
need to be addressed? Are there foreseeable unintended consequences of this policy? Are there
important “non-economic” factors at play?
A few tips:
? Be concise, organized, and to the point
? Use subject headings to organize flow and emphasize important components of the essay
? Think carefully about claims made by potentially biased organizations
The brief should be 4 pages of text (double spaced, Times New Roman 12 pt font, 1 inch
margins). You must also include a page of references (including the article you are writing
about) and any tables or graphs that are a part of your analysis. References must be cited
following the Chicago Manual of Style’s “Author-Date” style. Examples are available from the
American Journal of Agricultural Economics:
http://www.oxfordjournals.org.proxy2.lib.umanitoba.ca/our_journals/ajae/for_authors/guide.pdf
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