Authors: Food & Water Watch and the Public Health Institute

It is often argued that farm subsidies have led to the overproduction of commodity crops, and removing these subsidies would help combat obesity by discouraging overproduction of crops that are the base ingredients of unhealthy foods. This white paper analyzes the public health and agricultural economic literature and primary and secondary agriculture policy documents to examine this argument. Findings of the review indicate that deregulation of commodity markets–not subsidies–has a significant impact on the prices of commodities. The authors conclude that public health and health care communities can find common ground with the family farm community by moving beyond the focus on subsidies and advocating for comprehensive commodity policy reform. Read the paper.