Growing farm subsidies.

ITEM: India's Economic Times reported from New Delhi that U.S. opposition to farm subsidies had put World Trade Organization talks back on track. On May 23, it said, "Following the EU, the US has now expressed its readiness to eliminate subsidies of agricultural exports and export credit programmes, paving the way for resumption of the WTO negotiations."

BETWEEN THE LINES: The history of agriculture subsidies and international negotiations shows that free markets are not the actual goal. Subsidies are, in fact, the problem. They contribute to overproduction, which drives down prices to the detriment of producers in poorer countries. If all agriculture subsidies and protectionist barriers were removed, estimates an International Monetary Fund study, the global economy would receive a boost of $100 billion--mostly accruing to the nations that are currently subsidizing.

We're not holding our breath for that to happen. Congress passed "emergency" legislation tour years in a row, doling out subsidies totaling almost $30 billion by 2000, compared to $6 billion in 1996. By 2000, as reported in the Stanford Daily, subsidies made up 49 percent of the net income of U.S. farmers compared to 13 percent in 1996. Since implementation of NAFTA and the 1996 farm bill, reports a study by the Agriculture Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee, "U.S. crops exports have remained flat or declined, farm income derived from the marketplace has fallen dramatically, government payments to farmers have skyrocketed, and consolidation and corporate control in the marketplace have reached record levels."

The agriculture subsidy business is welfare for the wealthy. In 2002, as noted by the Environmental Working Group, almost two-thirds of U.S. farm subsidies went to 10 percent of the recipients. The richest corporate agriculture businesses are being subsidized so they can buy up smaller family farms. Subsidies for large farms, reports Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, have tripled since 1991. In 2002, 78 farms got more than a million dollars each. Riceland Foods in Arkansas scooped up $110 million, giving that one company more than all of the farmers combined in 12 states.

Fortune 500 firms are also raking in the subsidies--such as $2.3 million to John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance in 2002. Other notables on the farm dole, points out the Environmental Working Group, include David Rockefeller (who got 99 times more than did the median farmer) and Ted Turner (who picked up 38 times the median).