This study examines the behavior of public agents creating and administering policies to transfer rent among domestic economic interest groups. After a brief survey of endogenous tariff theory and attempts to apply it to agricultural policy, the study develops a model synthesizing the economic theory of regulation and the theory of optimal taxation to generate hypotheses regarding the relation between economic development and the bias of agricultural and food policy. The analysis sustains the proposition that the bias of agricultural policy shifts from pro-consumer to pro-producer and from fiscal surplus to fiscal deficit with the industrialization and diversification of the national economy. The model also provides predictions of the onset of agricultural protectionism in middle-income countries.