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by tengbretson 2963 days ago
> owing to the fact that farmers get most of their income from subsidies

Where on earth do people get these beliefs?

2 comments

Depends on how you count, and if "income" is "revenue" or "profit".

~$200B/yr in subsidies in USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_farm_bill

$990B/yr food GDP in USA: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

In my country it's 50+ %. While the EU paid direct cash subsidies are high, they only scrape the surface making up about 25% of the subsidies.

On top of the EU sibsidies there are direct national subsisidies and a wide spectrum of indirect national and EU level subsidies like export, pension, environmental, protectionist import duties, etc. And yes, beef production gets a similar share of subsidies as other types of farming.

I can't find good europe wide stats. I may have overgeneralized and the average may be under 50%. But the subsidies are still very high.