Really? The US spends about 1% of its budget on agricultural subsidies compared to the EU's 40%.

The EU's budget is tiny, though. It doesn't maintain armies, police, infrastructure, health care or any sort of social security. Farm subsidies are among the few things the EU spends money on. The rest is paid by member states. So this is not a meaningful comparison.

A meaningful comparison is difficult, granted. If anything, doesn't that make OP's point about food prices being low due to agricultural subsidies less tenable though?

No less tenable than the food standards proposition, unless you have data that shows the difference in industry expenditures on food quality.

I found a USDA publication [1] which is a little dated but raises a large number of factors that affect food household expenditure differences between the US and EU. Broadly speaking these are:

- Food prices inc. agricultural protection & consumption taxation;

- Income;

- Food availability;

- Consumption patterns;

- Preference trends inc. health, food safety, production process & taste;

- Demographic trends;

- Retailing & regulation (e.g. consolidation laws).

Some of the factors it highlights that may cause lower expenditure on food in the US than in the EU are:

- Lower food pricing due to protection & taxation;

- Food safety concerns in the EU since mad cow disease and dioxin in chicken feed (and foot & mouth disease in the UK) leading to lower confidence in food supply regulation;

- Greater willingness in the EU to pay more for higher animal welfare in the food chain;

- Higher proportion of organically grown food across the EU and differing definitions of "organic";

- Longer history of consolidation laws in the US.

Apologies I missed copying the actual reference in my last post: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/40408/30646_wr...

EU budget does subsidize infrastructure and some R&D grants.