Abstract

The United States, Europe and Japan provide farm subsidies at a rate of one billion USD per day. The bulk of this is captured by large corporate entities. Damage to less developed countries is extensive and deep. Besides the farmers who are harmed because of the resulting lower agricultural prices, these negative effects ripple through the rest of the economy, due to the central importance of the agricultural sector for developing nations. Besides being direct beneficiaries of these subsidies, farming corporations, including their ancillary support industries, have lobbied heavily to resist the growing international clamor to remove or at least substantially alter thesesubsidies. This paper examines the economics and ethics of international corporate responsibility on the issue of farm subsidies.