Farm subsidy programs have little impact on food consumption, food security or nutrition of the poor in the United States, say three economists in a paper written for the American Enterprise Institute, which promotes the free-enterprise system. “When filtered through the food chain, their impacts on retail prices and food consumption are surely tiny,” the paper said.
The impact is small, write economists Joe Glauber, Dan Sumner and Parke Wilde, because farm subsidies largely are aimed at crops at the beginning of the food chain. “For example, soybeans are mostly either exported or used in livestock feed. Therefore, any impact on meat prices, for example, is indirect and very small.” Dairy-marketing regulations tend to raise the raise the price of fresh milk and depress the price of dairy products such as cheese and butter so “the net result is no significant effect on prices or consumption.” Trade barriers raise the price of sugar, orange juice and fresh tomatoes for the poor but the impact “is not huge,” said the paper.
On the other hand, say the economists, the USDA’s array of public nutrition programs, headlined by food stamps and school lunch, reduce poverty by making additional resources available to poor Americans so they can buy food. But they are not part of the farm subsidy program. “The farm programs themselves have almost no impact on incomes of the poor in the United States.” The benefits go to a comparatively small number of operators with big farmers getting the lion’s share.