kickAAS
kick All Agricultural Subsidies: give poor nations a level playing field.
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- Subsidies: dig a hole and bury them
The US has just revealed new figures showing that it spent $16 billion in subsidies to its farmers every year between 2002 and 2005. Who cares? Very few people apparently. It's only money after all. Yet the truth is the... - Procrastination is the name of the game
Sorry for not posting recently. I think I must have caught the procrastination disease that is inflicting all the participants of the Doha international trade talks as they keep waiting for others to make a move, a game that could... - A tale of two planets
The world produced enough food to feed 12 billion people last year - almost twice the world's population according to UN official Jean Ziegler, yet 854 million people went without food. The reason? $350 billion dollars are being spent on... - The Wilder side of subsidies
Arise Maurice Wilder, newly crowned king of the subsidies. He received $2.5 million in farm handouts from 2003 to 2005, according to the Environmental Working Group, making him the single biggest single recipient. Even the Bush administration is becoming embarrassed... - Name and shame . . .
The US administration is making it easier to discover the individuals who are the main recipients of America's massive distribution of subsidies to farmers according to CBC news. The trouble is they don't seem to have any shame. - Is there life after subsidies?
Amid all the drip fed rumours of eleventh-hour brinkmanship in the international trade talks - ranging from the new French government demanding bigger US concessions to US thoughts about replacing direct subsidies with "self support" schemes, let's remind ourselves what... - Subsidies fatten the land . . . and you
Thanks to Carl Oberg for pointing out this article in the New York Times that I had missed linking the bad effects of agriculture subsidies and developed world obesity. In other words if richer countries got rid of subsidies they... - Beating about the Bush
There have been no posts recently because, tragically, there is nothing to blog about let alone blag about. The world's leaders continue to go through a ritual dance of "I'll do something, but only if you do something first" as... - What a good idea . . .
Farmers in Cyprus are up in arms about government proposals to tax farm subsidies. But why not? Nearly all of the economic research shows that subsidies are a hopelessly inefficient way of organising agriculture and they have the disastrous side-effect... - The long, long wait
While we are waiting for the seemingly interminable moment when there might be progress in the international trade talks here is a reminder why it is in the self-interest of countries such as the US to give up agriculture subsidies... - The melting ice at Davos
The ski slopes of Davos in Switzerland are witnessing a melting of hard line attitudes against agriculture reform as trade ministers make a final attempt to get agreement before time runs out. Seasons observers of trade talks have seen the... - While the rich people ski . . .
Next month's US trade bill doesn't look like doing anything radical to cut US subsidies, unless the newly enfranchised Democrats unexpectedly get the bit between their teeth. According to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, subsidies will be a bit lower and... - How subsidies screw small farms
Smaller, family farms, far from benefiting from America's vast agriculture subsidies, actually get screwed according to an article in the Washington Post {picked up by the Idaho Business Review). Sample quote: “The very policies touted by Congress as a way... - US subsidies: a whiff of garlic
While the rest of the world is trying to persuade the US and Europe to cut agriculture subsidies, a new problem is riding over the hill. There is a fresh group of farmers that so far has received no subsidies... - How subsidies undermine the efficient use of water
Everything is still pretty quiet on the subsidies front as the rest of the world waits to see whether the Democrat victory in the Congressional elections translates into more effective action to reduce farm subsidies. It might if only because...
