What Is A Subsidy?

“For some, agricultural subsidies are limited to checks that arrive in the mailbox. For others, subsidies include any costs that influence in any way the production, distribution, and consumption of an agricultural product,” writes Daryll Ray, Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy at the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center.

The problem, he says, is that the various parties involved in trade negotiations define subsidies “not on the basis of consistent analysis, but simply on the basis of which provides the desired advantage.”

So, how can we negotiate the end of a subsidy when we don't know what they are? he asks.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at April 1, 2004 09:06 AM | TrackBack