Stop the Corporate Welfare for Agribusiness

from The American Prospect:



Stop the Corporate Welfare for Agribusiness

Farm subsidies were supposed to be a temporary relief for small farmers during the Depression, but today they go mostly to big agribusinesses that hardly need them.

Robert B. Reich | October 15, 2007 | web only



I've got a way to reduce global poverty, decrease the number of workers crossing our borders illegally, save American taxpayers money, and cut your supermarket bills all in one swoop.
How? Get rid of U.S. farm subsidies and tariffs.

They were supposed to be a temporary remedy for small farmers during the Depression. But renewed every five years regardless of which party controls Congress, farm subsidies keep going and going. The latest version is now before the Senate. If enacted and signed into law, these farm subsidies will cost American taxpayers some $11 billion a year over the next five years.

I can see why the nation might want insure small, family farmers against risk. But these subsidies go mostly to big agribusinesses that hardly need them.

Fewer than 2 percent of Americans even work on a farm. Yet about half the population of the developing world depends on farming for their livelihoods. But they can't earn what the global market would otherwise pay them, because America's subsidized farm exports keep prices artificially low.

American cotton growers, for example, export cotton for just over half what it costs them to produce it. Which means more than 10 million African cotton farmers are stymied.

If we stopped subsidizing our cotton businesses, world cotton prices would rise, increasing the incomes of African cotton farmers by some $300 million a year.

Meanwhile, the average American tariff on agricultural imports is 18 percent -- much higher than the 5 percent average tariff on other imports. So not only do the world's poor suffer, but Americans get hit with a double-whammy. We're subsidizing U.S. agribusinesses with our tax dollars, while paying much more for our food than we'd pay if we didn't also protect agribusinesses. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=stop_the_corporate_welfare_for_agribusiness

http://farm.ewg.org/sites/farm/index.php?key=nosign

Footnote:
EWG supports broad-based reform of federal farm policy by expanding farmland conservation programs to increase assistance especially to the bottom 90% of farm subsidy recipients as well as those
completely left out of the current system.
DATABASE UPDATED JULY 2006

Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database=EWG


Maqs' Notation:

It is interesting to see where your tax-dollars go. Type in your zip-code, even in New York City-where there are no farms, and see who is sucking on George Bushs' Udder.

No more banks foreclosing on the family farm. The big outrageously cruel factory farms which commit unspeakable atrocities against animals should be fined not assisted.