More subsidies for the rich

Madeleine Cuff writes:

A shift to more sustainable farming methods, which would make space for wildlife rich hedgerows, meadows, and peat bogs, could cut greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 900,000 cars off the road, WWF said this week. Farming subsidies: Farmers can double their money by going organic under plans to protect nature, Madeleine Cuff,  9 February

Governments the world over have been engaged with agriculture for many decades. (I was tempted to say 'supported', but I doubt whether governments' involvement has been a net benefit to farmers or farming: it's certainly had many negative effects and not much has changed since I wrote this or this.) This involvement can teach us about governments' intervention in other sectors. One lesson we can learn is that once government entangles itself in a sector, it doesn't go away. Another is that such involvement can be an end in itself - can, indeed, be the whole raison d'être - for the government agencies that shape the regulatory environment or disburse taxpayers' funds.

There's a total lack of transparency. If our aim is to increase the area of hedgerows, meadows and peat bogs and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, why not reward those who increase the area of hedgerows, meadows and peat bogs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions? If, on the other hand, government wants consumers to pay more for their food and ordinary people to pay more tax so that some of the wealthiest people in the country can become even more wealthy, then government should be open about it. 

There is a third way, and that is to reward those who achieve an improved environment whoever they are and however they do so. It may be that paying wealthy landowners to convert to organic farming is one way of achieving environmental goals. But there might well be more efficient methods, and we can be fairly certain that the ideal mix of such methods will change over time and cannot be anticipated by any government or any single conventional organisation (see here for how a new type of organisation, working in a Social Policy Bond regime, could operate). We need diverse, adapative policies in the service of society's environmental goals, not government employees dreaming up policy iniatives following the 'advice' of vested interests. 

My suggestion is that we issue Environmental Policy Bonds to channel self-interest into the achievement of our goals. Even eschewing the bond approach, however, much can be said in favour of subordinating means to ends in relation to organic farming, and I have written about this in Policy for organic farming.