Cheap Food Policy

Cheap food policy refers to the suite of policies, most prevalent in the industrialized world, that are designed to keep urbanites’ spending on food a relatively small percentage of their total expenses. Cheap food policy as it stands at the beginning of the 21st century emerged in response to three historical drivers: (1) urbanization associated with industrialization and, in the case of the United States especially, immigration; (2) the Great Depression, which triggered the development of centralized food and agricultural policies; and (3) World War II, when Europe's agricultural productivity and infrastructure was mightily affected, resulting in food shortages and an increased value placed on reliable access to food, which in part is guaranteed through lower food costs.

There are two primary policy mechanisms for ensuring cheap food for consumers in industrialized countries, First, trade policies favoring imported food produced at comparative advantage at the expense of domestic producers (i.e., “free trade” policies) are often touted as a boon for food consumers, in that cheaper imported food becomes available at market prices. Second, government-funded subsidies and payments to producers are designed to appeal to multiple publics. They are meant to control costs of production, decrease producer risk, and increase production, resulting in larger supply—and thereby lower food prices. Though not as associated with the political rhetoric of cheap food, a third policy category—investment in agricultural research and technological development—can also be included in the discussion of these policies that are influential in decreasing the relative cost of food production. The cost of food relative to other household expenses in the developed world has certainly fallen over the last several decades, in the United States going from about one-third of a household's expenses in the 1960s to only about 11 percent in the early 2000s.

Historically, the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain in the mid-19th century is perhaps the first major instance of the free trade strategy used in the pursuit of the politically expedient cheap food policy. Corn Laws were a suite of trade policies offering protection to domestic grain producers. Their repeal ushered in an era of free trade in the agricultural arena, opening the British market to imported food from its colonies and North America, which were able to out-compete British-produced food based on lower cost of production. Although this policy was detrimental for domestic farmers, and therefore politically quite contentious, it was advantageous for urban populations, who were engaged in what was [Page 72]seen as the new economic engine—manufacturing. Industrialization and concomitant urbanization drove a demographic shift in populations dominated by rural people engaged in agricultural production to those dominated by urban people engaged in manufacturing; this change in demographic characteristics was paralleled by a shift in political priorities. Arguably, cheap food policy most benefited owners and managers of industry, rather than primarily laborers, because it allowed manufacturing wages to remain low. Urbanization and industrialization continue to drive cheap food policy in both the developed and developing worlds. As fewer people make their living through agriculture, and as more people are concentrated in urban areas, consumer concerns gain increased political importance.

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