Fat Americans, Starving Africans, and the Farm Subsidies That Love Them

US farm subsidies may win the award for the kind of story that, on face, is immensely boring, yet it is a story with severely devastating impacts across the globe. We're in the middle of a ten-year stretch, during which time the US government will hand out at least $171 billion, subsidizing big American farmers and spurring the overproduction of wheat, corn and the like.

From the Heritage Foundation, "Most of their enormous $171 billion cost would subsidize highly profitable Fortune 500 companies, agribusinesses, and celebrity 'hobby farmers' and help fund their purchases of small family farms, and the average American family would be left paying $4,400 in taxes and inflated food prices to benefit millionaires--unless Congress or President George W. Bush finally puts an end to this counterproductive waste of taxpayer dollars."

And then there are the Africans.

So not only are Americans paying out of their own pocket twice, first as taxpayers and then second as consumers at the grocery store, but then the US turns around to do its good deeds around the world, of which it does quite a bit with international aid, and the farm subsidies bear their bushels of rotten fruit once again. Inflated prices from American farmers hurt the world economy; farmers in the developing world can't sell their crops at market prices because market prices have been manipulated (remember the infusion of $171 billion?).

On top of messing with the market, the US regularly delivers giant sacks of grains to areas of the world like Darfur and the Congo, only, the wheat it delivers was grown in the US with the subsidies, so it's a trifecta: the delivery of aid itself is further depressing the local economies of developing countries.

So it was shocking to see CARE, a major humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, boycott the aid of the US. CARE turned down $45 million worth of wheat, arguing that its distribution harms local farmers. The Independent even wrote that the aid was "wrecking" Africa.

Lastly, the 2007 US Farm Bill, which is currently being debated in Congress and will be in effect for five years, looks like it will pass, with little change in policy.