Heroes, villains and victims: agricultural subsidies and their impacts on food security and poverty reduction

Subsidies have been a pervasive feature of agricultural policy in both high and low income countries. This chapter describes different kinds of subsidies and reviews evidence on their economic, food security and poverty impacts. The evidence suggests that different subsidy programmes have had in some contexts profoundly positive and in other contexts profoundly negative impacts on food security and on the livelihoods of poor people and poor societies. Discussions of the historical and potential roles of subsidies and their more recent use have, however, been the victim of an unhealthy over-emphasis on their negative effects without sufficient consideration of the potential to overcome these. These issues need to be addressed if agricultural subsidies are to fulfill their potential to make a significant contribution in addressing continuing and emerging challenges to food insecurity and poverty