"John D. Giorgis" wrote:
> Do you care to back this up? Almost every agriculture subsidy I have ever
> seen has the explicit goal of raising agriculture prices, from paying
> farmers to keep land fallow, to artificially boosting demand for
> agriculture products that never get used, to imposing 40% tariffs on many
> agricultural imports.
One of the major goals of US Agricultural Subsidies is to support inefficient US
farmers. Many other countries can produce food and ship it to the US
considerably cheaper than US farmers can produce it. Continuing the subsidies
mean that US farmers can continue current methods, rather than facing the
short-term pain that bringing their industry up to world standards of efficiency
would require.
Other US industries have been weaned off subsidies and supports, with
considerable anguish and turmoil, becoming internationally competitive in the
process, but don't expect the farmers to accept the idea...
Russell Chapman
Brisbane Australia
