Comments on: Doha on the Editorial Pages

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:05:59 +0000

90% of our agricultural subsidies go to feed grain, cotton, wheat, rice, and soybeans (in that order). Their elimination would have little effect on how much food we import or where we import it from.

I agree with your concern about food safety. Agricultural subsidies are an essentially unrelated topic.

By: Franklin

Franklin — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:35:17 +0000

My main concern is food safety. While this is true regardless of the food's origin and the amount of agricultural subsidies, I think it is obvious that we would import more food without those subsidies. And some countries have some pretty lax standards, if they have any at all.

By: Brett

Brett — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:26:59 +0000

Practically every country has a lousy agricultural policy and if we can induce other countries to abandon their lousy agricultural policies in exchange for us abandoning ours, all the better.

True. My only concern is that you might get a situation where conflict disrupts the trade networks bringing food from producer to consuming countries, leaving a bunch of countries dependent on food imports in the muck.