farm subsdides

danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: Ag subsidies revealed!!!
yes I’m not an economist, yes I’m probably dabbling into a field into which I know nothing, but the continuing articles on farm subsidies (in both the EU and Amerca) does show just how bad farming is.

“We know that a sticking point in the WTO negotiations is the resistance by the developed world to reduce their agricultural subsidies. Within that simple statement, however, the nature of ag subsidies is incredibly opaque. If you read Arvind Panagariya’s Foreign Affairs essay, you discover that there are different “boxes” of subsidies. You also discover — according to Cato’s Daniel A.Sumner — that many of these subsidies could soon be ruled as in violation of existing U.S. commitments to the WTO.

For now, however, these subsidies are here — but who, exactly, gets them?

For that answer, I encourage you to check out the Environmental Working Group’s Farm Subsidy Database. Through many, many FOIA requests, they have produced. an interactive website chock full of interesting facts. For example:

Half of all subsidies go to only 5% of Congressional districts.

Four commodities—corn, wheat, rice and cotton—account for 78 percent of all ag subsidies.”

Obviously more work needs to be put into getting un-profitable forms of farming out of the picture so that we can import better and cheaper foods from “the third world”

peace,
A

technorati tags: farming, economics