AbstractFor most economic goods market participants are ‘not forced to make a deal.’ They can walk away, perhaps permanently, or revisit a transaction later if the terms of trade are more to their liking. That is not the case for food. It is a biological necessity to participate in the food market. This coercive property of food demand and other unique market characteristics make the agricultural sector very unresponsive to changes in price and hence—in contrast to textbook expectations—its ability to quickly self-correct. In recent decades agricultural policy legislation has not taken into account the root causes of agriculture's chronic price and income problems. As a result, it has been largely ineffective and unnecessarily expensive. We argue in this paper that a well-designed supply management program can take agriculture's unique characteristics into account in a way that benefits farmers, consumers and the public as a whole.

This study highlights the behaviour of Mercury in the abiotic and biotic segments of the Mandovi-Zuari estuarine system. Spatial, seasonal (Premonsoon and Postmonsoon) and tidal, distribution of THg in dissolved / particulate fractions, sediment concentrations were mapped of the river mouths, Mormugao Port, inner and outer environs of this estuarine system. Observed seasonal partition studies provided an insight into the removal of.the metal into the particulate fraction and subsequent deposition in sediments in the postmonsoon. Bioconcentration factor provided a link in the Hg cycle between the abiotic and biotic compartments of this ecosystem. Metal contaminations in different tissues of biota representing different trophic levels were evaluated by calculating the bioconcentration factor. Although biomagnification and bioaccumulation was observed in the representative biota of commercial importance, the observed total mercury levels are well within the safety limit 0.5ppm set by WHO and 0.3ppm set by UNEP for fish products for human consumption, there by indicating no apparent mercury contamination