America's Two Faces at Trade Meeting

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Who benefits from the low prices? Agribusiness benefits directly because they now have low cost inputs for their various processing ventures. Large livestock feeding operations benefit because they now have cheap animal feed.

In Cancun -- the focus of attacks on U.S. farm policy has been on our subsidies. There is a belief that U.S. farmers are getting rich off of subsidies -- and without these subsidies production would go down, prices up and solve the crisis of dumping. Well intentioned governments and NGO's around the world have aggressively pushed this agenda in Cancun.

The problem is that they?re wrong, and the prescription they are pushing may well encourage the opposite -- a further decrease in prices. To understand U.S. agriculture you really have to spend some time in America?s heartland. What you?ll find is that when times are good farmers produce -- when times are bad, farmers produce. If subsidies were stripped away, farmers would do what they do best -- try to produce enough to stay on the farm. If they cannot stay on the farm -- they sell the land to neighboring farmers. The result would be a loss of family farmers, more large-scale farms with improved efficiency, and possibly more surplus production.

Without addressing the problems of over-supply coming out of the U.S., we can?t lift prices, and we can?t set a farm policy that benefits farmers around the world. Unfortunately, this discussion isn?t even on the table for negotiation in Cancun.

The agribusiness firms and the farm groups they represent are inside the U.S. trade delegation actively participating in the negotiations. But the real voice of the U.S. farmer is not. For example, National Family Farm Coalition President George Naylor, and Iowa corn and soybean farmer, is here in Cancun trying unsuccessfully to get contact, input and information to the U.S. trade delegation.

The agribusiness suits who huddle with the U.S. Trade Representative and are seen by countries around the world as the voice of U.S. agriculture don?t represent the American farmer any more than Brittany Spears represents the rich diversity of American culture.

Ben Lilliston is the communications director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

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