The Fat of the Land: Do Agricultural Subsidies Foster Poor Health?

Ever since the Great Depression, American farmers have been the beneficiaries of a medley of subsidies and support programs meant to stabilize crop prices, keep farmers farming, and provide U.S. families with an affordable, reliable supply of food. But these programs may have had an unintended side effect. Rather than keep Americans healthy, critics say, these policies have contributed to today’s obesity pandemic and other nutrition problems as well. Writing in the 2004 Annual Review of Nutrition, James Tillotson, a professor of food policy and international business at Tufts University, argues that U.S public policy encourages obesity at the expense of sound nutritional practices. “You have a whole régime here that’s worked to increase agricultural efficiency,” Tillotson says. And what U.S. farmers are most efficient at producing, he says, are just a few highly subsidized crops—wheat, soybeans, and especially corn.