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For Embargoed Release: 9:00 P.M. EDT, December 13, 2005 EWG: After Hong Kong, Redraw America's Farm Subsidy MapNew Analysis Shows Other Farm States Become Big WinnersUnder Fairer Payment System, Calif., Fla., N.C., Penn., Others Gain (WASHINGTON, Dec. 13) - Thousands of negotiators and nongovernmental organizations are attending the sixth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong this week, trying to move forward on new and fairer trade rules despite U.S. and European Union resistance to reforming their protectionist agricultural policies. But without progress in reforming agricultural policies at home, negotiators have remained deadlocked. Today the Environmental Working Group (EWG) offers a proposal to break the policy logjam and create momentum for reform within the U.S., with an analysis showing where federal farm subsidy dollars would go if they followed a common-sense formula of supporting all U.S. farmers based on the value of their production instead of concentrating payment in the pockets of the biggest producers of just a handful of historically subsidized crops. A map illustrating the results, along with a table presenting the dollar amounts, is at http://www.ewg.org/farm/redraw. In material simultaneously released at an event in Hong Kong sponsored by the U.S.-based German Marshall Fund, the map and analysis clearly show how subsidy dollars, which are currently spent on a small number of heavily exported commodities, would benefit a far greater number of states if payments were apportioned according to the economic contributions all U.S. farmers and ranchers. Two-thirds of America's farmers and ranchers receive no direct government support, mostly because they produce food that doesn't qualify. California leads the states in farm product sales, yet 90 percent of its farmers and ranchers receive no agricultural subsidies. Under EWG's redrawn map, California would have received $14 billion instead of $4.6 billion in subsidy dollars over the past decade. Florida famously provides fruit and vegetable (and dairy and beef) products to American consumers, but only six percent of its farms and ranches get direct subsidies. EWG's production-based formula would have increased Florida's agriculture aid by $3.4 billion over the last 10 years. North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon and Colorado would have gained at least a billion dollars more than the current system has provided. If the subsidy map were re-drawn, 34 states covering all of New England (from Maine to New Jersey), the mid-Atlantic (from Georgia to Maryland), most of the upper Midwest, and states scattered across the South and West would get government support for farming and ranching that matches their contribution to the nation's food and fiber production. Even the home states of the House and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairmen - Virginia and Georgia - would come out ahead under this fairer system for distributing federal farm dollars. "Far too much is at stake to leave decisions about farm subsidy policy in the hands of the subsidized," said EWG President Ken Cook, in Hong Kong for the WTO meeting. "Trade negotiators, no matter how many frequent flyer miles they rack up, will never break the subsidy impasse so long as domestic farm interests in the United States and Europe take turns vetoing reform." "We can advance the post-Hong Kong debate in the United States by rethinking our justification for farm subsidies, and developing a rationale that is more up to date and fairer to the majority of farmers in this country who have been passed over for assistance for decades," Cook said. A new revenue-driven subsidy map would revolutionize farm politics. Politicians who have ignored or traded away their votes on farm subsidies in the past would suddenly find they have a vital interest in agriculture policy - a chance, finally, to get something out of a farm bill for their rural constituency. "Thousands of farmers are turned away each year when they request federal support to reduce pesticide and fertilizer run-off from their fields, preserve farmland from development, or conserve water, wildlife and soil," Cook said. "Commodity programs siphon away that money, just as they preempt funding for programs aimed at low income, part-time or minority farmers; research on sustainable farming systems; and funds for rural development, healthcare and education. With a shift away from commodity-centric subsidies, priorities like these would have a chance for support." Sixteen subsidy-dependent states, along with the top 10 percent of recipients who take in 70 percent of the money, would be forced to adjust to a lower share of the government's aid to agriculture, including a reduction and restructuring of the very subsidy programs that represent America's contribution to the WTO's chronic gridlock. ### EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C., that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. The group's farm subsidy research is at http://www.ewg.org/farm. |
