Soil and Gold

The What

Agriculture Subsidies

        The subtle importance of subsidies impacts every aspect of consumer consumption. In the United States, processed foods reign thanks to the placement of federal subsidies on corn, sugar, and wheat. The byproducts of these crops remain more convenient for American shoppers. (10, 12, 42) In the European Union, subsidies on fresh foods top the list. As a result, produce is more affordable for European shoppers. (10, 24)

        The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) denotes vegetables as the most funded subsidy which may be connected to the Union's strong dedication to human health through the Precautionary Principle. Written in the European Union's Constitution, the Precautionary Principle states government can eliminate policies (or specific products) that may pose threats to human health even with a lack of scientific evidence. For example, the EU banned Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) across their production chain. (13, 18) A decade of scientific evidence denies any detriments to human health from GMOs. (37)

       Maintaining human health is ingrained in the European Union as a constitutional tenant. No such constitutional amendment exists in the United States; though these powers of the office are implied, they are not explicitly stated. The EU is nearly two hundred years younger than the US government. In the United States, policy related to human health is driven by scientific research and results. (41) A US imbalance in subsidy distribution (what crops are subsidized) correlates with food prices, subsequently impacting human health. (29) Infamous for obesity, the somewhat accurate international perception of the nation’s weight is not completely the fault of the individual. Though health remains an individual responsibility, government policy helps shape lifestyles. (33)

        Not only are more processed, unhealthy foods more affordable and accessible in the US, healthy foods are expensive considering their caloric yield. This leaves a healthy diet out of financial reach for many low-income Americans. (33) As a result, Americans face a disadvantage in maintaining individual food security and health compared to their European counterparts.

       In the European Union, (a bloc of twenty-seven European nation member states) the CAP accounts for nearly 40% of the entire European Union’s budget or in monetary terms, (≈ $61 billion annually) (7, 11). The CAP emerged from post World War II Europe and addressed problems in an agricultural sector with small, fragmented farms and low farm incomes. Today, its main goal is still to support farm income. In a unanimously passed 7-year budget, EU member states pool together some of their individual financial resources to fund the supranational government. (11) The majority of the EU budget pours into the CAP displaying a high priority on agriculture. (22) Research for this site has shown that the EU’s crop subsidy portfolio is also far more diverse than that of the United States.

       Modern US commodity subsidy policy (supportive of crops like corn, wheat, and soy) emerged from the Great Depression era. (42) These policies do not include direct farm income support but instead provide a type of insurance where farmers pay into a commodity program and receive more subsidy dollars than those they lost paying the "insurance" fee. In the US’s 2021 budget, agriculture accounts for 3% of the total federal budget or $158 billion. The annual agriculture budget is more than double that of the EU’s CAP. Despite a larger overall agriculture budget in the US, European funding for agriculture subsidies far surpass US levels by nearly ten times. (3) It is also important to consider the European Union is a supranational organization of multiple countries who also individually fund their own national agriculture infrastructure.