Long time in germination

"The five-yearly row over agriculture is deadlocked, and time is running outOF THE recent battles between the Democrats in Congress and George Bush, none is as counter-intuitive as that over the farm bill, America's twice-a-decade review of agricultural policy. Mr Bush is insisting on reforming subsidy payments that disproportionately benefit a small cadre of big agribusinesses in mostly Republican states. The Democrats, who ran on a platform of good government in 2006, have so far opted to keep the largesse flowing. With the legislative clock ticking, the Democrats are suffering for their lack of backbone. The current policy is shameless. Farmers of a few select crops such as wheat or maize can avoid almost all risk using the government's overlapping system of subsidised insurance, loans and payments. The recipients are hardly the most deserving: farm households make a third more than others, and the richest of them, which get most of the subsidies, bring in three times what the average non-farm household does. Instead of saving the family farm, the policy is destroying it, encouraging agricultural land consolidation and raising barriers to entry. And then there are the deleterious effects America's price-distorting payments have on foreign farmers and so on trade negotiations. ..." (2008-3-27)

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