2008 Woodie Awards
op-ed: Urge U.S. Senate to change farm bill
Robert McKay
Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: Opinions
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This week, the Senate votes on the bill that will determine the course of U.S. agriculture for the next five years. The House has already passed its version of the new farm bill, and it has introduced some promising changes. But these only mitigate the House's overall failure to rethink a fundamentally broken farm and food policy.
In the last five years, the government handed out an average of $12 billion a year to farmers. Nearly all of these subsidies support a handful of commodity crops, primarily corn, soy wheat and cotton. Because of current high commodity prices, a great deal of this money is at best wasted. At worst, it helps perpetuate the consolidation of farming in the hands of a few agribusiness giants, while driving out the family farmers political rhetoric purports to be "saving." Because payments are based on how much a farm produces, not on the farm's income, large farmers with no need of economic assistance often get the biggest checks. A Washington Post special recently interviewed farmers who said they simply felt insulted by the unneeded charity. But they continued to take the checks in order to keep up with their neighbors, who were using their handouts to buy more land and expand production, guaranteeing more subsidies next year. Thus the subsidy program is spurring the spiral of consolidation, driving small farmers out and land prices up, and making it near impossible for new farmers to buy land.
Furthermore, U.S. subsidies are pushing millions of farmers in the developing world into desperate straits. Since the '70s, the United States has been aggressively expanding overseas markets to soak up surplus commodities. Sometimes, over 50 percent of a crop is "dumped" on the foreign market at below the cost of production, underselling farmers worldwide. The WTO has begun to take notice - the U.S. government just lost a suit brought by Brazil over the trade-distorting effects of its cotton subsidies.
Finally, the current subsidies program contributes to the health problems facing poorer Americans. Because it provides ultra-cheap corn and soy to the meat and processed-food industries, the cheapest food in the supermarket is also the unhealthiest. Far from a fact of nature, the situation is due in large part to policy - healthier foods aren't made artificially cheap by subsidies.
In the last five years, the government handed out an average of $12 billion a year to farmers. Nearly all of these subsidies support a handful of commodity crops, primarily corn, soy wheat and cotton. Because of current high commodity prices, a great deal of this money is at best wasted. At worst, it helps perpetuate the consolidation of farming in the hands of a few agribusiness giants, while driving out the family farmers political rhetoric purports to be "saving." Because payments are based on how much a farm produces, not on the farm's income, large farmers with no need of economic assistance often get the biggest checks. A Washington Post special recently interviewed farmers who said they simply felt insulted by the unneeded charity. But they continued to take the checks in order to keep up with their neighbors, who were using their handouts to buy more land and expand production, guaranteeing more subsidies next year. Thus the subsidy program is spurring the spiral of consolidation, driving small farmers out and land prices up, and making it near impossible for new farmers to buy land.
Furthermore, U.S. subsidies are pushing millions of farmers in the developing world into desperate straits. Since the '70s, the United States has been aggressively expanding overseas markets to soak up surplus commodities. Sometimes, over 50 percent of a crop is "dumped" on the foreign market at below the cost of production, underselling farmers worldwide. The WTO has begun to take notice - the U.S. government just lost a suit brought by Brazil over the trade-distorting effects of its cotton subsidies.
Finally, the current subsidies program contributes to the health problems facing poorer Americans. Because it provides ultra-cheap corn and soy to the meat and processed-food industries, the cheapest food in the supermarket is also the unhealthiest. Far from a fact of nature, the situation is due in large part to policy - healthier foods aren't made artificially cheap by subsidies.
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