Farm subsidies — who benefits? - System is open to questioning

THE president of the ICMSA, John Comer, argues today that “the Basic Payment is “less of a farmer subsidy than it is consumer subsidy”. 

Mr Comer should not be surprised that this view is not universally shared, especially as those he suggests are the “subsidised” beneficiaries are the very taxpayers who fund the farm support schemes in the first place.

There is a valid argument, too, that farm subsidies, like so many other market interventions, miss their target and indirectly support food processors and food retailers in an unintended way. Regular farmer protests at meat plants and milk processing factories, and large retailers powerful enough to set a price for farm produce, seem to confirm this.