The impact of Political Contributions by Food Manufacturing Firms on U.S Farm Policy

This study generates an econometric model of the allocation of political contribu-tions by food firms. It combines information about food firms ' total expenditures for political influence with the behavioral assumption of profit maximization to test the hypothesis that food manufacturing firms do not lobby against farm policies. The results support the hypothesis. The inferences are conditional on the effects observed in the sample. The conclusions from this analysis may not be widely generalizable, but they do inform hypotheses about the intentions of food firms that participate in the political market. Key IP"rrls: agribusiness, agricultural commodity programs, farm policy. food manufacturers, lobbying, political contributions Outside of the farm sector, little attention has been given to the way stakeholders in the food and agricultural system allocate their political contributions. Makinson reports that in the 1990 federal election campaign, for example, food processing and sales firms contributed $3 million, while farm input and services suppliers contributed $2.7 million, brokers and commodity dealers $1.3 million, and crop production and basic processing $4.1 million. Individual food processing finns suc