11–20 of 222 posts
Some farms are just hella big with ultra low land productivity.
Currently, EU subsidizes farms based on land area. Which is supposed to change, but the lobby is strong.
EU will even pay farmers a pension if they retire and stop production.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And a lot subsistence farming in the developing world where you basically just farm for yourself to eat which are very small. And even if someone farms for selling to others if they don't have reliable access to machinery the farms will be really small as that just does not scale up (just take a look at pre industrial world where something like 90% of people were farmers)
> And even if someone farms for selling to others if they don't have reliable access to machinery the farms will be really small as that just does not scale up (just take a look at pre industrial world where something like 90% of people were farmers) You seem to assume/imply that small farms in the developing world cannot scale up due to economic/business reasons. However in some developing countries, farms cannot be…
I do. It's good.
- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/1... - http://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/284666/
Small farmers need support, it's worth learning about local arms of organisations such as https://viacampesina.org/en/, for example https://landworkersalliance.org.uk
After the fall of communism in Bulgaria, land was to be given back to people(during the communism everything was owned by the government). Don't know the details but now we have small amount of farmlands and forests. Turns out, most urban people don't fancy to work the land by themselves and those in the villages really suck at the organisation. So my grandma is living in a town, she opted out to keep her land in a c…
After the fall of communism in Bulgaria, land was to be given back to people(during the communism everything was owned by the government). Don't know the details but now we have small amount of farmlands and forests. Turns out, most urban people don't fancy to work the land by themselves and those in the villages really suck at the organisation. So my grandma is living in a town, she opted out to keep her land in a c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And a lot subsistence farming in the developing world where you basically just farm for yourself to eat which are very small. And even if someone farms for selling to others if they don't have reliable access to machinery the farms will be really small as that just does not scale up (just take a look at pre industrial world where something like 90% of people were farmers)
> And even if someone farms for selling to others if they don't have reliable access to machinery the farms will be really small as that just does not scale up (just take a look at pre industrial world where something like 90% of people were farmers) You seem to assume/imply that small farms in the developing world cannot scale up due to economic/business reasons. However in some developing countries, farms cannot be…
> if farming in the Western world wasn't heavily subsidized, it wouldn't exist in the Western world
It probably would change, but it's weird to suggest it would stop existing without governmental subsidies. Most farming in the West is either intensive mass-production of commodities or sectorial, high-margin goods like wine. For the most part, agricultural subsidies are helping small businesses in sectors where they aren't really competitive (mostly by making the taxpayer or the consumer pay the difference, but that's another story...). Again, not to say subsidies are wrong per se, but I don't follow your reasoning there.
> The reason for the farming subsidies is to have internal food production in case a war prevents sufficient food imports
???
Most Western countries (with the possible exception of the US, I don't know) aren't agriculturally self-sufficient, nor it is a goal for them to be. In case a war broke out, energy supplies would be a much more pressing concern, especially for Western Europe.
Power laws everywhere.
Farms have continued to grow, echoing Earl Butz' (Nixon's Secretary of Ag) "get big or get out" philosophy. However, there are several studies out there showing that a greater portion of the world's population is fed by small farms: - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5... - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/1... - http://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/284666/…
After the fall of communism in Bulgaria, land was to be given back to people(during the communism everything was owned by the government). Don't know the details but now we have small amount of farmlands and forests. Turns out, most urban people don't fancy to work the land by themselves and those in the villages really suck at the organisation. So my grandma is living in a town, she opted out to keep her land in a c…
I'm not sure that's the only conclusion that can be drawn. What you're describing is simply a lack of education on the matter - there could have been a program to help these people out rather than just assume a monopoly will do a better job in the long run.
Anyway, I don't know what courses will fix the disorganisation problems and make the farmers turn into MBAs while still accept to live in a village and do hard work but if there's an success story of this, I would support it.
From my point of view, these things need to be done in huge scale. To achieve scale, owned by single company or governmental body or cooperative is all good by me. Probably proper regulations and governmental programs could be a solution too.