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Ag subsidies -- I am ashamed of my country
$46.5 billion a year goes as a payoff to American farmers from the government. The congress should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this theft from the honest taxpayers. 
Here's FT's article...
Here's FT's article...
Boost for Blair bid to cut EU farm cash
By Raphael Minder in Brussels, Frances Williams in Geneva and James Blitz in London
Published: June 21 2005 20:47 | Last updated: June 21 2005 20:47
Britain's campaign to cut European Union agricultural spending was boosted on Tuesday by a report showing subsidies to farmers in rich countries scarcely budged over the past decade.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development findings will provide ammunition for Tony Blair, the British prime minister, who on Tuesday offered to give up the UK's €4.6bn rebate from the EU budget if farm subsidies were radically cut.
The report says subsidies made up 30 per cent of OECD farmers' incomes on average last year, the same as in 1995, when new rules negotiated in the Uruguay world trade talks came into effect.
Most subsidies are still linked to production, the most trade-distorting support. The EU led the OECD league table for producer subsidies last year with $133bn (€110bn), nearly half the total support of $280bn.
Japan was next with $49bn, with the US just behind at $46.5bn. While EU subsidies to farmers have declined modestly over the past decade, US support rose 18 per cent last year.
Reforms have failed to touch products such as rice and sugar, where subsidies account for up to three-quarters of market value. This is likely to raise fears by competitive agricultural exporters in the Doha round of trade talks that leading subsidisers are not prepared to open markets significantly to imports from the developing world.
The OECD report comes as Brussels launches an overhaul of the sugar subsidy system, which has helped inflate the EU sugar price to about three times the world market price.
Mariann Fischer Boel, agriculture commissioner, proposed a 39 per cent cut in the guaranteed EU price, a reform seen as a test of its willingness to stop dumping and open its market. It is likely to spark an internal confrontation with countries such as Italy and Ireland, whose inefficient sugar producers could be forced out of business.
Writing in today's Financial Times, Mrs Fischer Boel says the overhaul should help silence critics who argue that "the EU sugar regime has been the epitome of everything they feel is wrong with the CAP [common agricultural policy].
She adds: "In 2003 and 2004 the CAP underwent a quiet revolution which all but ushered out farm subsidies linked to production. It would be madness to try to shield the sugar sector from this cleansing wave of reform."
As Britain prepares to take over the EU presidency on July 1, Mr Blair is trying to avoid the impression of intransigence over the rebate, having been blamed by France and Germany for the collapse of last week's budget summit.
"The rebate is an anomaly that has to go," he said after meeting Goran Persson, Swedish prime minister. But it had to go in the context of other financing problems, such as farm subsidies. Mr Blair held an earlier position that the rebate was "fully justified and non-negotiable".
By Raphael Minder in Brussels, Frances Williams in Geneva and James Blitz in London
Published: June 21 2005 20:47 | Last updated: June 21 2005 20:47
Britain's campaign to cut European Union agricultural spending was boosted on Tuesday by a report showing subsidies to farmers in rich countries scarcely budged over the past decade.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development findings will provide ammunition for Tony Blair, the British prime minister, who on Tuesday offered to give up the UK's €4.6bn rebate from the EU budget if farm subsidies were radically cut.
The report says subsidies made up 30 per cent of OECD farmers' incomes on average last year, the same as in 1995, when new rules negotiated in the Uruguay world trade talks came into effect.
Most subsidies are still linked to production, the most trade-distorting support. The EU led the OECD league table for producer subsidies last year with $133bn (€110bn), nearly half the total support of $280bn.
Japan was next with $49bn, with the US just behind at $46.5bn. While EU subsidies to farmers have declined modestly over the past decade, US support rose 18 per cent last year.
Reforms have failed to touch products such as rice and sugar, where subsidies account for up to three-quarters of market value. This is likely to raise fears by competitive agricultural exporters in the Doha round of trade talks that leading subsidisers are not prepared to open markets significantly to imports from the developing world.
The OECD report comes as Brussels launches an overhaul of the sugar subsidy system, which has helped inflate the EU sugar price to about three times the world market price.
Mariann Fischer Boel, agriculture commissioner, proposed a 39 per cent cut in the guaranteed EU price, a reform seen as a test of its willingness to stop dumping and open its market. It is likely to spark an internal confrontation with countries such as Italy and Ireland, whose inefficient sugar producers could be forced out of business.
Writing in today's Financial Times, Mrs Fischer Boel says the overhaul should help silence critics who argue that "the EU sugar regime has been the epitome of everything they feel is wrong with the CAP [common agricultural policy].
She adds: "In 2003 and 2004 the CAP underwent a quiet revolution which all but ushered out farm subsidies linked to production. It would be madness to try to shield the sugar sector from this cleansing wave of reform."
As Britain prepares to take over the EU presidency on July 1, Mr Blair is trying to avoid the impression of intransigence over the rebate, having been blamed by France and Germany for the collapse of last week's budget summit.
"The rebate is an anomaly that has to go," he said after meeting Goran Persson, Swedish prime minister. But it had to go in the context of other financing problems, such as farm subsidies. Mr Blair held an earlier position that the rebate was "fully justified and non-negotiable".
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