A NY Times article reports that U.S. farm subsidies are mainly for corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton, and says that "U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy." The result, the author argues, is "[a] food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both)." By contrast, "the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow."
This article made me realize that I've never heard of the healthiness of particular foods being mentioned as part of the agriculture subsidies debate in trade negotiations. Should it be added as a relevant concern? Should subsidies that promote healthy foods be treated differently under trade rules? Are they already treated differently under existing rules somehow -- how does the SPS Agreement relate to the Agriculture Agreement? This is the first time I've thought about this, and there may be some obvious answers out there which I am not aware of.
