Comment by huijzer
21 hours ago
> lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time.
If by “us” you mean big corporations, which will then buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later, then I agree.
21 hours ago
> lets us anticipate droughts distribution and crop failures months ahead of time.
If by “us” you mean big corporations, which will then buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later, then I agree.
Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry.
Corporations may indeed be taking advantage of this, demanding prices so low that the farmers don't get the benefit of those subsidies. However:
> buy the stuff and sell it at a premium later
Is the point of a futures market. Futures let people trade a thing before they even know how supply and demand will balance, guaranteeing a price for the producer and letting them plan purchases of machinery and maintenance, with the risks (in bad years) and profit margins (in good years) going up the supply chain.
No, the point of a futures market is to have a reliable supply which matches demand and allows everyone who works to produce and use a given commodity to have a reasonable expectation of demand and how production should be matched to it.
Goldman-Sachs should _not_ be inserting themselves into profiting on the poor's daily bread.
https://theecologist.org/2011/sep/13/how-goldman-sachs-start...
The point of the futures market is to transfer risk to someone more capable or more willing to manage it. Any effect on supply and demand is a side-effect of this.
The risk is inherent. Not everyone that produces a commodity wants to manage the risk associated with that commodity, as it is a very different skill set.
A "reliable supply" is fundamentally not possible with all the vagaries of the natural world. Even the Code of Hammurabi makes reference to this*, and we still have "acts of god" in modern parlance.
Futures significantly pre-date your link.
* https://ehammurabi.org/law/48
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the point of a system is what it does. if the futures market lets a bank make money off bread, thats the point of it
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Another reason why most countries subsidise their agriculture is because in times of war you don't want your enemy to starve you. That's mostly about high calories foods, not fancy salads though.
It would be just easier to not wage war by the way.
Can't think of many countries besides Canada and US that would not starve in NATO if such a necessity arose, and that's because they produce lots of cereals.
All the other countries in NATO are major food importers.
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In the US, we have a massive grainfed meat livestock sector that in an emergency could basically all be slaughtered in favor of feeding the grain to people.
But we also have recent history demonstrating that this will not be allowed to happen, no matter how much starvation there is in poorer countries, we WILL have our steaks. Not negotiable.
> But we also have recent history demonstrating that this will not be allowed to happen, no matter how much starvation there is in poorer countries, we WILL have our steaks. Not negotiable.
Indeed, though given Trump's behaviour I have wondered what will happen when it's poorer *US states*.
Fortunately, the farmers had a word and seem to have stopped the deportation of the undocumented (illegal) immigrants who do so much farm work.
Also fortunately, the reservoirs (that weren't even connected to where the fires in SoCal were) were not actually emptied, so my worst-case scenario at the time didn't come up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_water_release_from_Lake_K...
Long may it continue that people who can say no to bad decisions, remain able to say no. Last thing anyone in the world needs with the Eurasian breadbaskets of Ukraine and Russia destroying each other's grain export capacity is the US shooting itself in both legs with an M134.
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rich americans will have their steaks.
poor americans will starve outside the walls
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Distribution is hard too. It’s not as simple as “we have food and we are mean”. Look at how Hamas for example was seizing food supplies meant for starving Palestinians. Who is going to deliver food aid to, idk, Sudan and ensure only the hungry get it? What guns and soldiers will protect it? Who is going to pay for it?
Other countries have a lot of money and excess food too - EU, China, Brazil. I would look forward to hearing their proposals to solve hunger and to shake the hands of each volunteer and soldier and pilot/ship captain going to help feed people.
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> Many farmers are subsidised specifically so that food is over-produced in most years, specifically to ensure than in bad years people don't go hungry.
Which country does that? Here farmers were (very heavily) subsidised because footage of farmers walking off the land was political suicide for whichever party was in power at the time. When the subsidies were stopped by a government with a safe enough majority to be able to do it, many farmers did walk off the land. I've never heard of a government making sure there's over-production for future lean years.
Seems to work pretty well. The alternative is either no food or no prices.
So are we supposed to demonize the big corporations for making a profit or celebrate them for planning ahead and making sure we don't starve?
I'm not so sure these days.
I mean do we not want food to be stored for tough times? And the people who do this storing should get paid for it?
If you think that is going to happen, you can buy up some supplies and store them yourself. I have relatives with some impressive and substantial pantries because they're prepared to be snowed in for an extended period of time. Running out of food is possible the least novel problem humanity has ever encountered.
And what would you rather happen? If they don't store up a surplus then everyone will run out of food and prices will go up anyway. If there is less food because of a drought, prices are going up. If corporations start building up a stockpile then prices aren't going to go up as much as if there were no reserves.
TLDR; Yes. Good. It is a great day when there is food available at the local supermarket.
The world is bigger than your relatives.
I'm sure he was referring to already food insecure places. The rich countries will have food available, probably at elevated prices.
In places where there's actual famine people will do crazy things to get their hands on food.
If the plan isn't to stockpile food communally through a big corporation making a tidy profit for being well prepared in a disaster, and it isn't to stockpile it personally... what is the plan? There won't be any food.
There are very limited options here. Those two are, by far, the two best ones for reliably being able to access food. Someone has to build up a reserve. Literally, you should to be able to point someone out and say "this person will give me food next month, they've got a stockpile for this drought".
Ideally that someone who is very, very motivated to get it right and make it happen. Those big corporations charging extra are going to keep people fed.
> The world is bigger than your relatives.
I offer no commentary on the size of my relatives vs. the rest of the world :)
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