> (the US spends $38 billion in subsidies - about $114 per person)
I think that number is basically made up. It comes from a chain of references by activists and lobbyists (against meat and dairy subsidies) who are basically playing a game of broken telephone with statistics.
AIER cites a Columbia SIPA article, which cites the book Meatonomics. Meatonomics is written by a lawyer who advocates against meat and dairy and seems to have synthesized the number by adding numbers from several sources. He cites an article by an anti-meat/dairy law firm which estimates dairy subsidies at $19 billion. (Meatononics includes dairy subsidies in the $38 billion figure.)
But those dairy subsidies aren't from payments to dairy farmers. They're looking at indirect subsidies, the largest of which is food stamps and other nutritional assistance programs. They estimate that Americans spend about 11% of their food budget on dairy products and based on that they estimate the amount of food stamp money that goes to dairy farmers.
tl;dr: The number is a rough estimate based largely on the government giving poor people food stamps and people choosing to spend some of that on meat and dairy. The numbers are also from advocacy groups, not peer reviewed journals.
I think that number is basically made up. It comes from a chain of references by activists and lobbyists (against meat and dairy subsidies) who are basically playing a game of broken telephone with statistics.
AIER cites a Columbia SIPA article, which cites the book Meatonomics. Meatonomics is written by a lawyer who advocates against meat and dairy and seems to have synthesized the number by adding numbers from several sources. He cites an article by an anti-meat/dairy law firm which estimates dairy subsidies at $19 billion. (Meatononics includes dairy subsidies in the $38 billion figure.)
But those dairy subsidies aren't from payments to dairy farmers. They're looking at indirect subsidies, the largest of which is food stamps and other nutritional assistance programs. They estimate that Americans spend about 11% of their food budget on dairy products and based on that they estimate the amount of food stamp money that goes to dairy farmers.
tl;dr: The number is a rough estimate based largely on the government giving poor people food stamps and people choosing to spend some of that on meat and dairy. The numbers are also from advocacy groups, not peer reviewed journals.