Cheap Food Policy: Fact or Rhetoric

James Miller and Keith H. Coble ()
Additional contact information
James Miller: Mississippi State Department of Agricultural Economics

Others from EconWPA

Abstract: The term “cheap food policy” has frequently been used as a descriptor for U.S. commodity programs by those who contend these payments to farmers ultimately result in lower food costs for consumers. More recently, farm policy has been criticized for contributing to the obesity problem in the U.S. by making large quantities of fattening foods widely available and relatively inexpensive. This paper econometrically evaluates the impact of direct government payments to farmers from 1960-1999 on the proportion of disposable income consumers spend on food. The model finds the payments do not significantly affect the affordability of food.

Keywords: Agricultural policy; obesity; food policy; technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
Date: Written
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 24
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/othr/papers/0506/0506008.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Cheap Food Policy: Fact or Rhetoric? (2005)
Journal Article: Cheap food policy: Fact or rhetoric? (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0506008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Others from EconWPA
Series data maintained by EconWPA ().