The WTO trade rules for agriculture and the U.S. Farm Bill share the same flawed vision for food production. That vision prohibits limits on production, privatizes stockholding of food, focuses attention and investments on commodities as inputs for food processing at the expense of food production and rural livelihoods, and aggravates the gross distortions in markets caused by private oligopolies.

This paper looks at the alternatives for fixing a bankrupt system and rethinking both the objectives and the obstacles.

This article was first published in Foreign Policy in Focus.