Foreign billionaires: the real beneficiaries of agricultural policy

Government's involvement in agriculture in the rich countries has a long history. Its subsidies, originally well intentioned and (to some extent) rational, have created powerful interests that resist change. They've led to farming at an intensity that degrades the soil, water, and animal welfare. One of their - stated - aims was to preserve the family farm, which they haven't done. They are capitalised into farmland values, making entry into agriculture almost impossible for those who don't inherit. They raise food prices, while barriers to food imports stifle the prospects of food-rich developing countries and transfer money from taxpayers and consumers to the wealthy: 

UAE’s ruling royal family benefits from more than €71m in EU farming subsidies

The United Arab Emirates’ ruling royal family is benefiting from tens of millions in EU subsidies to grow crops destined for the Gulf, it can be revealed. A cross-border investigation by DeSmog and shared with the Guardian found subsidiaries controlled by the Al Nahyans collected more than €71m (£61m) in six years for farmland it controls in Romania, Italy and Spain. The Al Nahyan family is the second richest in the world, with an estimated wealth of more than $320bn (£235bn), mostly derived from the Emirates’ vast oil reserves. Subsidies under the common agricultural policy (Cap) make up a third of the EU’s entire budget, paying out about €54bn each year to farmers and rural areas across the bloc. UAE’s ruling royal family benefits from more than €71m in EU farming subsidies, Clare Carlile, 'The Guardian', 7 May 2026

These subsidies have been widely challenged for decades (I wrote about them in 2001), but still they continue....

All of which points to the need to be very clear about what are the actual intentions of government policy. If, for instance, it's to achieve self-sufficiency in food production, then we need to look beyond outputs to inputs - especially oil. If it's to help smaller farmers, then target the incomes of small farmers, rather than subsidise land ownership. If it's to raise the cost of food so as enrich billionaires, then come clean and tell us that that is your intention. 

A Social Policy Bond regime would oblige policymakers to be clear about the outcomes they wish to see. This should be a starting point for all policies, in contrast to today, where stated intentions are vague, incoherent, uncosted and deceptive. Politicians can get away with such obfuscation because we are used to policies being framed in terms of funding arrangements, legalisms and institutional structures. The connections between what politicians say, what they do, and outcomes are too obscure to be identified. A bond regime, though, would have explicit, verifiable goals, which the public could help prioritise and with which ordinary citizens could engage - necessary to generate buy-in to policies that invariably create losers as well as winners. Transparency, efficiency and buy-in are just some of the advantages of a Social Policy Bond regime, about which there is much more on SocialGoals.com.