• History - the processes of economic development tends to leave farmers (as peasants) behind as poorer (see below), though numerous = politically important (aggrevated in EU and Japanese case by war experiences
  
• Geography - especially the land per person (density of population) will affect the extent to which history is important
• Economics -
• agricultural share of total income tends to decline with economic development - hence, unless there are fewer farmers trying to earn a full time living from farming - farmers will become relatively poorer - they need to leave farming and do something else.  But if there are a lot of them, this is difficult, and (especially in democracies) they can be expected to raise political pressure for support and protection.
• agricultural markets characterised by inelastic demands for foods - which means that small changes in supplies (weather, over-optimistic expansion by farmers) will tend to have severe effects on prices -> volatile markets, prices, revenues and incomes.
• Sociology - social concerns about the environment, animal welfare, food safety and health, tend to become more important as societies become richer, more leisured and more separated from the original sources of food - so policy pressures begin to change
• Politics - the particular policy patterns will also depend critically on the political balances, networks and mechanisms at work in the particular case - as should become evident as we look at specific policies.

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