Comment by nemomarx

12 hours ago

Pricing anything into the cost of food would be political poison. Paying farmers to grow nothing is considered preferable to that

9 comments

nemomarx

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Loughla  11 hours ago

It's not always about price. Paying farmers to grow nothing ensures they stay open if we need them to grow something.

When I farmed we had set aside land paid for by the government. When there were predicted shortages on food in the future, we were allowed to farm that ground.

You don't want farmers going under. It just takes one bad year that way and we're all fucked. I've never lived through a proper famine, but Grandpa talked about the dust bowl and depression. It sounded fucking awful.

  • bruce511  9 hours ago

    This exactly.

    The fuss made about agricultural subsidies by non-farmers is misguided. Dropping subsidies doesn't make food cheaper, it makes it go away.

    Consumers are addicted to cheap food, so they pay taxes instead to make up the difference. Given a progressive tax system this actually is a very efficient approach to take. And overall, as a % of the total budget, these subsidies are insignificant.

    What is hurting farmers are reduced markets. USAid used to buy up a lot of surplus production (effectively a back-door subsidy), lots got exported to China et al. Given the economic antagonism towards the US (thanks to things like tarifs and insults) demand for US food exports either dropped naturally (eg Canada) or with reciprocal tarifs (eg China).

    Politicians like to say "we don't make things here anymore" ignoring the most fundamental production of all (farming). They destabilize foreign trade, and (if we look at more labor intensive crops) target farm workers for deportation.

    To be fair, agriculture states are also red states, so it's fair to say they voted for this.

    • mlrtime  2 hours ago

      >What is hurting farmers are reduced markets

      I know there is a rule about reading the article, but did you? This [trend] is nothing new, USAid has nothing to do with it other than short term changes.

    • IG_Semmelweiss  9 hours ago

      The vast majority of countries have barriers preventing our highly efficient production from selling in their countries. Think Argentina and meats, Switzerland and all things cattle, EU and pretty much everything.

      Tariffs were one way to pry open those markets, but of course, the few agricultural products that were already selling , were affected in the retailiation . It will take some time for things to sort out.

      1 reply →

  • enaaem  6 hours ago

    That’s what foreign aid is for:

    1. Keep strategic production capacity alive.

    2. Spread American soft power.

    3. Get warm fuzzy feelings because you prevented millions of people from dying of starvation.