Agricultural Subsidies

I Affirm that Agricultural subsidies are a massive waste of taxpayer dollars and are essentially the subsidization of a negative externality. Given: In this debate the emittance of greenhouse gases are considered to negatively impact society as a whole. Definitions: Externality - an effect on a third party (usually the community as a whole) that is not involved in a business transaction. -positive - benefits the public - negative - hurts the public Subsidy -Tax money given to a business/person to artificially create more demand/give to pay for a positive externality created by a transaction. Argricultural subsidies in the context of my debate are shown to be taxpayer dollars given to farmers so that farmers will not produce crops in the current year. The point is to lessen the supply of crops and thus increase the price, thus making them more profitable for farmers who are producing crops. EXPLANATION OF WHY FARMING IS A NEGATIVE EXTERNALITY Farming is a negative externality because it is responsible for producing about 15 to 20 percent of global methane emissions come from livestock. John Robbins, author of The Food Revolution and Diet for a New America, says that methane is 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the culprit normally at the center of global warming discussions. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that animals in the U.S. meat industry produce 61 million tons of waste each year, which is 130 times the volume of human waste produced, or five tons for every U.S. citizen. In addition to its impact on climate, hog, chicken and cow waste has polluted some 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.foodreference.com... WHY SUBSIDIZING FARMING IS ECONOMICALLY INEFFICIENT AND WHY WE SHOULD TAX FARMING Subsidizing farming is economically inefficient not only because farming is a negative externality and provides absolutely no benefit to the populous outside its business transaction, but it also pays people to do no work. If we were to stop subsidizing farming, it would become not as profitable as other industries, thus gradually those seeking to become farmers would choose different career paths and the overall number of farmers would decrease as farmers retire/die. Thus the amount of livestock and crops would lessen in number which would drive the prices of food back to an acceptable profit range that subsidization currently makes possible. We would not be wasting taxpayer money paying people to not work, we would not be actively supporting global warming with taxpayer dollars, and we would not be paying inflated food prices at the grocery store. More people would be employed/available in the job market. Since the job market would have a larger population, we would see better people employed and thus would experience more productivity for our economy which would produce more tax dollars which could be going to subsidize a positive externality. Instead of subsidizing agriculture we should be taxing it equivalent with the cost of cleaning up the pollution in methane gas and other forms of pollutants that it produces.