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The only requirement? You must be a cow.
Five star amenities like these are not the exclusive domain of Japanese resorts but can also be found on the country's farms. For decades the nation's cattle have been at the centre of extensive government funding and elaborate farming techniques aimed at producing the incredibly tender beef Japan is known for. As a result, farmers there receive roughly $7 a day for each of their cows – far more than the daily income of half the world's population.
Japanese beef is just one of many government subsidized foods, along with American corn and European fruit. Together, the subsidies are worth a staggering $300 billion a year. Thousands of kilometres away, a very different reality unfolds.
In the near-barren fields of sub-Saharan Africa, farmers struggle to keep their businesses afloat. With only enough tools to plow small fields and the occasional drought to contend with, it's difficult enough to earn a living. Add the fact that local markets are flooded with cheap, imported produce and it's no wonder they remain impoverished.
As food prices continue to rise and 100 million people fall back into poverty, experts are eager to explain the causes. What's rarely discussed, though, are the massive disparities in the global agriculture industry and the role farm subsidies play in keeping millions of developing world farmers from feeding their populations in the first place.
"Subsidies have a direct effect on the ability of developing countries to mitigate the rise in food prices," says Jim Lyons of Oxfam America.
The payments are remnants of the Depression era, when farmers worldwide were in dire straits. Now they often fund massive overproduction in the developed world and the dumping of food into poor countries, where it swamps regional markets. Local farmers simply cannot compete. And when they can't compete, they go out of business – leaving countries heavily dependent on imported food and making agricultural development nearly impossible. Farming is the primary industry in many impoverished countries, so when it fails, entire economies do, too.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recently said that subsidies cost developing countries $100 billion a year in lost income – money desperately needed to offset rising food costs.
What's more, around the globe these subsidies often go to wealthy farmers who don't need them. In Europe, the richest farms get 85 per cent of subsidies, while in the United States three-quarters of farmers don't get any funding.
"That's the great myth of subsidies," Lyons says of the belief that small farmers benefit from government money. "Subsidies have outlived their useful life."
Yet they continue. Last month, the U.S. Congress passed a multi-billion dollar farm bill described by U.S. President George W. Bush as "bloated" with subsidies. Bush vetoed the bill, but was overridden by a Congress keen to support it.
Lyons suggests that, in addition to eliminating subsidies, international aid needs to put a greater focus on supporting developing world farmers. In the 1980s, 17 per cent of official development assistance went to agricultural projects. Today that number is 3 per cent.
Without reforms like these, food production in the developing world will remain unstable and tensions will begin to rise as fast as food prices. That's already begun in places like Haiti and Egypt, where riots have broken out over the high cost of food. So time is of the essence.
"We're not just talking about food and starvation," Lyons says. "We are talking about civil unrest. We are talking about national security."
Craig and Marc Kielburger are children's rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world. Online: Craig and Marc Kielburger discuss global issues every Monday in the World & Comment section. Take part in the discussion online at thestar.com/globalvoices.
