It is postulated that some issues of economic policy in general, and of Australian agricultural policy in particular, may be analysed in the framework of an adaptive control model. Policy making is characterized as a rational, sequential decision-making process under conditions of imperfect knowledge in which forthcoming information may be used to learn about the uncertain terms as decision periods pass. Emphasis is given to the linear-quadratic control problem. The paper provides a review of the formulation of a policy problem in the framework of an adaptive control model and of derived policy strategies. An illustrative example is reported.