We — the U.S. taxpayers — help subsidize farmers by paying part of the premiums on their crop insurance. This helps ensure that farmers don't go belly up, and it also protects against food shortages.
But are there unintended consequences? For instance, do subsidies encourage the production — and perhaps overconsumption — of things that we're told to eat less of? Think high fructose corn syrup or perhaps meat produced from livestock raised on subsidized grains.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University in Atlanta were curious. In a paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine, they point to a disconnect between the nation's agricultural policies and nutritional recommendations.
Americans are told to fill 50 percent of our plates with fruits and vegetables. But here's the contradiction, as the researchers see it: U.S. agriculture policies "focus on financing the production of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy and livestock," the researchers write. About $170 billion was spent between 1995 and 2010 on these seven commodities and programs, according to the researchers.
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6 comments:
So NPR is dreaming up another phony crisis to babble about.
Reality check: Too much corn production depresses the price. If prices are too low, farmers will plant something else.
(BTW-- with their terrible track record, we don't need to pay too much attention to what the food police say we should have on our plate anyway.)
They produce what's profitable for them. Do you blame them? Half the people around here can't spell nutrition anyhow
It is spelt fast food and fried everything.
Taxpayers subsidize corporations,farms sugar anything where the super rich have a hand in.
The only thing getting fat is the politicians wallets. Free markets now!
Look at the frozen dinner selections, only starches and "meat". Finding a serious helping of green veggies in one is next to impossible.
What does that teach the population?
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