Don’t Make It Fair, Make It Die
Garance and Yglesias are linking to this Oxfam video, part of their “Make the Farm Bill Fair” campaign, decrying that the biggest recipient of agricultural subsidies are not the “family farmers” but instead those devilish industrial agricultural operations. Oxfam is being slightly dishonest here. They really don’t care about how the subsidy pie is cut — they just want the subsidies, tariffs and quotas that negatively affect the third world poor to be eliminated. Of course, taking away money from the hearty American farmer so that Haitian children don’t starve and die has never been a good way to sell policy, so Oxfam is instead going with “take money away from the corporate fat cats and give it to the hearty American farmer.” While this pitch will increase the probability of getting serious agriculture reform from p=.0 to p=.001, Oxfam’s proposals ought not to be the subsidy reform panacea.
Why should “family farmers” be subsidized at all? What is a family farmer? If subsides are bad because they undercut the prices of local farmers in the developing world, doesn’t the wheat a “family farmer” grows still undercut a Ghanan farmer? What about the quotas and tariffs that unfairly advantage all American farmers?
Family farmers needn’t all die out in a world without perverse subsidies and price supports. The growing interest in local, organic and humanely grown food all benefits small, non-industrial farms. But it’s still not clear to me why it’s in the government’s job to devote billions of dollars protecting any farmers — be they family or corporate.
Ultimately, well meaning groups like Oxfam and well meaning people like Yglesias and Garance are just going to have this rhetoric of the noble family farmer — who’s never been a smaller portion of the US population — used against them to justify the continuance of our insane agricultural polices.
But it’s still not clear to me why it’s in the government’s job to devote billions of dollars protecting any farmers — be they family or corporate.
Food Security.
keatssycamore
October 11, 2007 at 9:11 am
We’re a major agricultural exporter. We don’t need subsidies for food security any more than Australia does, Keatssycamore.
Actually Able to Think
October 11, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I am not terribly familiar with this area public policy but my understanding is that having locally grown produce is better for the environment and our health, which isn’t really about the “family farm” so much as creating small locally owned farms that can sell produce to its surrounding areas.
Joseph
October 11, 2007 at 4:59 pm
The reason that the government has to “subsidize” farmers comes from the origins of the farm bill itself. The original farm bill was a relief package for farmers in the mid-west suffering from the Dust Bowl. The reality is that Farmers take risks that other people don’t. Farmers can’t make it rain, the can’t make the sun shine, and they can’t stop the dust bowls. The can’t stop a drought that might run for 3 or 4 years. If a farmer can’t make a profit for several years in a row, then they have to leave the business, and that is bad for the economy. Not everyone farms, but everyone eats. The farm bill is suppose to act like a safety net in times when prices fall below cost. Although the Farm Bill in its current state has snowballed out of control, farmers will continue to need the security that the original farm bill provided.
Alicia
October 12, 2007 at 9:50 am