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TARGETING FARM PROGRAMS
Author(s) -
SUMNER DANIEL A.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
contemporary economic policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.454
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1465-7287
pISSN - 1074-3529
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7287.1991.tb00323.x
Subject(s) - payment , welfare , unit (ring theory) , business , context (archaeology) , government (linguistics) , direct payments , public economics , farm programs , agriculture , economics , agricultural economics , finance , market economy , paleontology , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics education , mathematics , biology
“Targeting” in the agricultural policy context generally means directing payments to small or financially vulnerable farms or to poor farm families. This may seem a worthy objective. If farm programs were designed to act as welfare, then focusing the benefits on the needy clearly would be appropriate. Payments now are roughly the difference between the market price per unit produced and a high government price per unit. Therefore, farms with more output get larger payments. Further, revising farm programs to act as aid to the needy would be difficult. Targeting amendments currently proposed generally are unworkable and likely would do little to change the actual distribution of benefits. Finally, because farmers currently are eligible for other aid programs and because few producers of significant output meet general welfare criteria, seemingly little real reason exists for attempting to convert farm programs rather than simply phasing down the payment levels overall.