I often use the figure that a European cow gets $2 a day in subsidies - more than the average income of 2.7 billion people around the world. Now thing have changed. Europe´s cows have had a pay rise. Oxfam´s calculations show that they used to get $2.20 a day, but in 2003, they got $2.62.
Not all poor countries would benefit if European agricultural protection was relaxed - some, for example, enjoy preferential axis. But there is a new World Bank research paper out, Distortions to world trade: impacts on agricultural markets and farm incomes, that estimates...
...farm employment, the real value of agricultural output and exports, the real returns to farm land and unskilled labor, and real net farm incomes would all rise substantially in developing country regions with a move to free merchandise trade, thereby alleviating rural poverty - despite the decline in international terms of trade for developing countries that are net food importers or are enjoying preferential access to agricultural markets of high-income countries.
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