Subsidies: dig a hole and bury them

The US has just revealed new figures showing that it spent $16 billion in  subsidies to its farmers every year between 2002 and 2005. Who cares? Very few people apparently. It's only money after all. Yet the truth is the US (and all the other  subsidy junkies) would be doing the world a favour if, instead of handing out taxpayers money to farmers, they simply buried it in a big hole in the ground. The US would be no worse off but millions of people in developing countries suddenly would be able to grow crops such as sugar beet and cotton that they are prevented from at the moment because of subsidised competition.. But, of course, if they didn't bury it the US would have  $16 billion more to spend on things that really matter.

Comments

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Amen to that. The US is known for subsidizing crap. If we took all the money we spentsubsidizing everything we'd truly be the super powe that we think we are.

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[Leon Markham]

Kelli

I appreciate the pain and fear you feel - a lot of farmers throughout the West worry about how they can afford to keep the farmland their families have stayed on for generations.

I have to ask you though, to consider the possibility that something rather unpleasant may be true. That it might, possibly, be better for your country, better for the world, and in the long run, better for you, to be given the chance to compete in the open market.

When it comes to industry - we now accept that there is no inherent right to work in the steel mill your father did and in the global society people in the USA benefit from goods produced cheaply overseas.

With services such as education - the USA is known to be the best provider in the world and institutions such as Harvard and Princeton, along with a great number of humbler places, bring billions into your economy.

So why do you feel comfortable asking your neighbours to pay for you to stay on your farm and to continue to produce food at a higher price than they could get it for elsewhere?

And have you noticed - in places where some competition is introduced into farming, a large number of mediocre, underperforming farms are turned to other uses - while people with some entrepreneurial spirit or love of the land turn to other alternatives such as organic farming or producing very high quality products in other ways.

"Strategic Products" seems to me to be a bit of a cop out. If the USA's security were really threatened by a shortage of food globally, or only being able to obtain it from unfriendly sources, how quickly do you think it would be possible to draft the army into farming great swathes of your country? Days? Weeks maybe?

I feel your pain sister but - like the working class people who blame immigrants for the fact that their lives seem to lack opportunity - you're getting the wrong end of the stick.

Peace

L

[Kelli]

This article is a joke! Why don't we become dependent upon foreign food and add that to oil. I wonder how mean we would get when were hungry? How many wars would that start? I am a beef producer and happily admit that there are some greedy large farms out there. HOWEVER you group all farms receiving subsidies together. SHAME ON YOU! I guess you think shame on me for wanting to keep inherited farmland. Maybe I should sell it since it's worth way more to a subdivision deleloper. Maybe you don't think our green space is valuable to the US in any way? Get a life and join the peace corps. YOU make a differnce. OH and help me buy feed for my cattle when you have an extra dollar!

[Nini McGuire Azadeh]

Certainly you are well aware, but choose to ignore, that these are strategic products, hence, the consequences are not ss simple as you put it - not growing them at home will have far complex and impeding effects on the country and its future.