Editing Agricultural policy (section)

=== Rural poverty and poverty relief ===
Subsidising farming may encourage people to remain on the land and obtain some income. This might be relevant to an agrarian country with many peasant farmers, but it may also be a consideration to more developed countries such as [[Poland]]. It has a very high unemployment rate, much farmland and retains a large rural population growing food for their own use.

Price controls may also be used to assist poor citizens. Many countries have used this method of welfare support as it delivers cheap food to the poorest in urban areas without the need to assess people to give them financial aid. This often goes at the cost of the rural poor, who then earn less from what is often their only realistic or potential source of income: agriculture. Because in almost all countries the rural poor are poorer than the urban poor, cheap food policies through price controls often increase overall poverty.

The same often counts for poverty relief in the form of food aid, which (unless while during severe drought) drives small producers in poor countries out of production. It tends to benefit lower middle class groups (sub-urban and urban poor) at the expense of the poorest 20 percent, who as a result remain deprived of customers.