farmers in low-income countries find it difficult to compete. Farm subsidies in the high-income countries cause

farmers in those countries to increase the amount they produce. This increase in supply drives down world prices of

farm products below the costs of production. As Michael Gerson of the Washington Postdescribes it: “[T]he effects

in the cotton-growing regions of West Africa are dramatic . . . keep[ing] millions of Africans on the edge of

malnutrition. In some of the poorest countries on Earth, cotton farmers are some of the poorest people, earning

about a dollar a day. . . . Who benefits from the current system of subsidies? About 20,000 American cotton

producers, with an average annual income of more than $125,000.”

As if subsidies were not enough, often, the high-income countries block agricultural exports from low-income

countries. In some cases, the situation gets even worse when the governments of high-income countries, having
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