http://www.ewg.org/node/8790"U.S. taxpayers provided $264 million in 2004 to a handful of agribusiness firms through an obscure but controversial cotton subsidy program at the center of a fierce global debate over agricultural subsidies—a debate that has paralyzed international trade negotiations for the past three years. One company alone, Allenberg Cotton of Cordova, Tennessee, received almost $35 million through the program last year, and has collected more than $186 million since 1995."
~~
~~
American officials have said that the U.S. will comply with the WTO decision on Step 2 and other cotton subsidies. But no one has said how it will do so, or when.
Terminating Step 2 won't be easy. The 2004 payments brought the 10-year cost of the subsidy to more than $2.4 billion. (Last year was the fourth most expensive for the program over that period.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Without this subsidy U.S. cotton growers could not compete internationally. Some of the farmers U.S. producers are competing with are farmers in Africa just trying to sell cotton to survive.
NOte the acreage devoted to cotton (about 12 million acres) is about equal to the total acreage devoted to growing corn for ethanol in 2006. Now not all the acreage would be suitable for feed lot corn but a large proportion would be. I wonder what would happen to the priceof corn is the acres devoted to cornfor ethanol almost doubled?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x91393#91623 Actually, USDA predicts an 8% decline in acres planted to corn for 2008. Why? cause farmers can get more for wheat and soy-beans!
Yes, wheat and soy-beans are up as much as corn and I know of no-one making biofuels out of wheat. And the amount of bio-diesel being made from soy-beans is almost miniscule.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
