Originally uploaded by boubou1
LMB recently wrote about farm subsidies in the US and the damage they do. They affect the major ingredients and prices of the food we buy.
there are five crops which receive huge, huge payouts from the US government: corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and cotton. None of these five are all that nutritious (particularly the cotton), while healthier produce like broccoli and carrots and such get almost no subsidies.
The result? According to Pollan, “real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) [he means corn syrup] declined by 23 percent.” Calories are cheap and nutrients are ’spensive.
Since high fructose corn syrup is actually quite bad for you, it seems that one effect of subsidizing corn so heavily is to make Americans unhealthy. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to put that subsidy money into other crops and healthcare?
But the most devastating result of these subsidies is felt in other countries.
The second catastrophe that these food subsidies is the destruction of foreign agriculture. If you get a jillion dollars in free government money for growing soybeans, you can sell them for much cheaper than the amount it cost to produce those soybeans. And if those subsidies encourage you to grow more soybeans than you can sell domestically (and they do), then you’ve got extra to sell abroad. And if your exported soybeans are competing with local farmers who do not get a jillion dollars in free government money, then your soybeans will sell over your competitors. Then your competitors go bankrupt, and whee, global poverty.
This year’s Farm Bill might be different. Don’t just keep your fingers crossed, write to your elected officials about it.
An effect of subsidizing is that it makes Americans unhealthy? You’re kidding right?
No, I’m not kidding. Poor people have higher rates of diet related health problems. Poor people buy cheaper food. The food is cheap because it was made from cheap ingredients like high fructose corn syrup.
HFCS now accounts for nearly half of the caloric sweeteners added to processed food…[C]heap and abundant additives such as HFCS allow manufacturers to sweeten food liberally without adding much to their production costs. For people on a tight budget, these additives can also make cheap food the most efficient way to get calories.
High fructose corn syrup is only cheap because of the incredible overproduction of corn subsidized by the US government.
[...] immigrants do know how to take care of themselves. They’re doctors, teachers, farmers. As I mentioned a few days ago, our agricultural subsidies have done terrible things to the Mexican economy. These [...]
It’s not my fault if people on a budget buy too much Coke. Maybe you could try listing the actual “cheap foods” that are killing the poor, and they are helpless to stay away from.
[...] posted before about the damage farm subsidies can do to the economies of other countries. Corn is one of the most heavily [...]