U.S. Farm Policy: Subsidizing Poor Health?

U.S. Farm Policy: Subsidizing Poor Health? The law of unintended consequences holds that even well intentioned policies can have adverse effects. Just as U.S. farm policy may have helped American farmers become the most productive cultivators on the planet and contributed to low food prices across the country, America’s system of crop subsidies also may be contributing to poor health.1 Ninety-percent of all subsidies support just five crops (Markheim and Riedl, 2007). By artificially lowering the price of certain foods in the marketplace, subsidies have encouraged excessive consumption of these foods and have changed the way Americans eat. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than with corn and corn-based products, such as the now ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that the diet for the average American has changed drastically over the past 40 years. Between 1970 and 2003, U.S. food consumption rose 16 percent and the average American now consumes 523 more calories per day (Buzby and Farah, 2005). Low corn prices due to farm subsidies have made corn-based sweeteners, such as HFCS, attractive alternatives to expensive – and import controlled – natural cane-based sugar. Because of sugar tariffs, the U.S. price for sugar is over twice the world price. This tariff has helped increase per capita consumptio