11–20 of 159 posts
This process of farm consolidation is inevitable. Agriculture benefits from economies of scale, even 2000 years ago the Roman latifundia fed an empire efficiently.
Roman food distribution was anything but efficient or fair
"A gallon of milk costs a farmer approximately $1.90 to produce, but in the last year, farmers have been receiving as little as $1.35 per gallon." If it cost more to make it than they are getting, why are milk prices not higher?
Agriculture subsidies. Farming in the US hasn't been a fundamentally profitable business for decades but the government provides a massive welfare program to ensure the survival of farmers, maintain a stable food supply, and keeping prices low for consumers.
Also, farmers are a powerful special interest group. I know a dairy farmer who was invited to meet with a state governor one on one. The farmer flew to the meeting on his family's private jet.
This process of farm consolidation is inevitable. Agriculture benefits from economies of scale, even 2000 years ago the Roman latifundia fed an empire efficiently.
Did they? What's up with all the famine then? The empire relied on an obscene amount of grain shipments from North Africa and Egypt (plus sicily to begin with). Roman food distribution was anything but efficient or fair
"A gallon of milk costs a farmer approximately $1.90 to produce, but in the last year, farmers have been receiving as little as $1.35 per gallon." If it cost more to make it than they are getting, why are milk prices not higher?
The situation would sort itself out better if we’d left it the hell alone, but now the pain that correcting this situation will cause is significant
"A gallon of milk costs a farmer approximately $1.90 to produce, but in the last year, farmers have been receiving as little as $1.35 per gallon." If it cost more to make it than they are getting, why are milk prices not higher?
Oh America...
This process of farm consolidation is inevitable. Agriculture benefits from economies of scale, even 2000 years ago the Roman latifundia fed an empire efficiently.
Did they? What's up with all the famine then? The empire relied on an obscene amount of grain shipments from North Africa and Egypt (plus sicily to begin with). Roman food distribution was anything but efficient or fair
The article only mentions land value once, and in my opinion this is a huge oversight. There's articles going back to 2010[0] that speculate that a land bubble had been going for a few years, and when that's coupled with quantitative easing it means that people had to borrow increasing amounts of money to buy an equivalent amount of land. Combine that with decreasing crop prices and additional debt load that was take…
The article only mentions land value once, and in my opinion this is a huge oversight. There's articles going back to 2010[0] that speculate that a land bubble had been going for a few years, and when that's coupled with quantitative easing it means that people had to borrow increasing amounts of money to buy an equivalent amount of land. Combine that with decreasing crop prices and additional debt load that was take…
In the UK, economists say QE has been a success to the point where some say we have learned how to print money without creating Weimar-style inflation. However it looks like the inflation has simply transferred to assets, particularly property including farmland. And we don’t yet know what the impact is. Again in the UK, we might say in the future, increasing property prices resulted in a reduced birth rate, and an increased need for inward migration to plug the gap. Just speculation, but we don’t yet know how this experiment plays out - and with your interesting insight, we might ask whether the end of mid-scale farming was the impact. Given the importance of this group, for many reasons, on American culture and identity, what will be the victim of QE?
This process of farm consolidation is inevitable. Agriculture benefits from economies of scale, even 2000 years ago the Roman latifundia fed an empire efficiently.
Did they? What's up with all the famine then? The empire relied on an obscene amount of grain shipments from North Africa and Egypt (plus sicily to begin with). Roman food distribution was anything but efficient or fair
"A gallon of milk costs a farmer approximately $1.90 to produce, but in the last year, farmers have been receiving as little as $1.35 per gallon." If it cost more to make it than they are getting, why are milk prices not higher?
Agriculture subsidies. Farming in the US hasn't been a fundamentally profitable business for decades but the government provides a massive welfare program to ensure the survival of farmers, maintain a stable food supply, and keeping prices low for consumers.
Hard to argue against that logic.
Cheap food is great for votes. Unfortunately, it also seem to often have ill health consequences.