Characterizing Agricultural Policy‐making

This article examines the contemporary agricultural policy‐making environment in Britain and suggests that the growing complexity of interest articulation and policy making has eroded NFU dominance as a peak association. We would suggest that it is this clientelistic attitude to agriculture rather than a specific relationship withoneinterest group (however influential) that shapes the agricultural agenda. This article rejects a version of events which sees policy outputs as being the result ofexclusiveMAFF/NFU interactions as exaggerating policy‐making closure, and the exclusion of environmental and otherexternality interests.It portrays the policy sector as fragmented and competitive, with a wide cast list ofpressure participantsall vying for policy influence. It identifiesflexiblepolicy communities operating at the sub‐sectoral level, and within such arrangements the NFU often has to defer to thespecialistornicheexpertise of single commodity groups or agricultural processing companies.