Subsidies’ Harvest of Misery

A US bill passed during the 1930s Great Depression – paying farmers for crops not grown – no longer makes sense. Instead, current US farm programs hurt the poorest people in the world and small farmers in the US, encouraging “excess production while channeling enormous government payments to the biggest producers,” argues former President Jimmy Carter in an opinion essay for the Washington Post. Subsidies contribute to overproduction and dumping cotton in overseas markets, resulting in severe price reductions for nations that depend on agriculture, specifically growing cotton. Proposed bipartisan amendments to the US farm bill would place caps on subsidies or provide insurance to farmers who suffer losses due to weather events. Carter concludes, “Congress has a moral obligation to protect American agriculture with legislation that will serve our national interests, that will feed hungry people and that does not suppress the ability of the poor to work their way out of poverty.” – YaleGlobal