Destructive Farm Policy
by Brian Riedl

Congress is rewriting farm policy this year.  Lawmakers would be hard-pressed to enact a set of policies that are more destructive to farmers, taxpay­ers, and consumers than the current farm policies. Consider that:

• Farm subsidies are intended to alleviate farmer poverty, but the majority of subsidies go to com­mercial farms with average incomes of $200,000 and net worths of nearly $2 million.
• Farm subsidies are intended to raise farmer incomes by remedying low crop prices. Instead, they promote overproduction and therefore lower prices further.
• Farm subsidies are intended to help struggling family farmers. Instead, they harm them by exclud­ing them from most subsidies, financing the con­solidation of family farms, and raising land values to levels that prevent young people from entering farming.
• Farm subsidies are intended to be consumer-friendly and taxpayer-friendly. Instead, they cost Americans billions each year in higher taxes and higher food costs.

For these and other reasons, organizations represent­ing taxpayers, consumers, environmentalists, inter­national trade, developing nations, and even farmers themselves have united around the shared conclusion that the current farm subsidy system is failing and in dire need of reform during this year's reauthorization.

For more details go to: “How Farm Subsidies Harm Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too” at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/bg2043.cfm  (then click “print this page (pdf)” for the printable version with charts)

Brian Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow for Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.