The last days of a 350-year-old family farm • Hacker News Board

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#131

Post by jkepler » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:29 AM UTC

1letterunixname wrote: post #108

elguyosupremo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

family farm becomes a different thing when you start milking 1100 cows, it's usually a few of the family working with several undocumented immigrants. I live in upstate NY also tho our family sold the farm a couple of decades ago. The farm we used to own has gone towards organic milk to get a premium for their product, and the family that bought it now relies heavily on undocumented immigrants.

America relies heavily undocumented immigrants, from dairy to produce farm ag to meat processing to restaurants to landscaping. An open secret is that ICE doesn't touch meat ag's workers except for token enforcement. It's a dangerous occupation that includes underage child labor, deaths, and amputations without a social security net.

If its an open secret (like the open mystery in Ephesians 3:9,10), can you provide some sources to substantiate your claim? Thanks!

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#132

Post by jkepler » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:35 AM UTC

Arn_Thor wrote: post #68

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #7

From an economic standpoint, there is no sense in small scale farming. From a personal standpoint, the sensible thing to do is to scale it down to subsistence gardening for yourself and your family. That is what my family does. I remember, when I was still young, they still used to sell some produce. Nowadays it is entirely consumed by the family or gifted out. The benefit of this, is that you are free from economic…

You're right, from an economic standpoint, at least on the surface. But what of the social and ecological benefits of keeping alive small communities and small fields with diverse crops? The problems with large-scale monoculture farming are well known. A counter-argument is that food is too cheap. That obviously doesn't feel correct for someone struggling to pay the bills each month, but still... Workers are being sq…

> Workers are being squeezed on one end and small farmers are being squeezed on the other, and the gains go somewhere else entirely while small communities fall into despair and die out.

This seems to have all started when we turned the dollar into a melting iceberg jn 1913 (created the Federal Reserve, which is basicaly a cabal of private banksters with a veneer of government), and it intensified when we decided to make dollars our primary national export product in 1971 (when Nixon closed the gold convertibility window for foreign central banks). Since then, workers are squeezed for working hard and trying to save for the future, but not understanding that if they're saying in dollars they'll never get ahead.

My guess specific to farming is that federal subsidies for corn and energy have driven prices up in ways that price smaller-scale farms out of the market.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#133

Post by jkepler » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:40 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #127

sgu999 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From an economic standpoint, there is no sense in small scale farming. I don't think this is true everywhere. It likely requires the right supply chain to work, but here in France small family farms are doing fine for instance. They have to go sell their products to local markets on top of growing them, but it's a sustainable business.

Without subsidies none of those would survive, especially the French ones, who are notorious for their 'traditional' (i.e., inefficient) farming practices.

I'm not sure US agro-business would survive at scale without the massive federal subsidies it receives. The little guys in the US don't get the benefit of the government money on anywhere near the scale of the big firms. Large agricultural corporations are among those lined up to grow from the Cantillion effect of being very close to the government money printer---and everyone who's further from that spigot gets squeezed as the purchasing power of the US dollar is destroyed.[1]

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#134

Post by jkepler » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:51 AM UTC

crtified wrote: post #38

Low wage industries struggle in high wage countries. Globalization displaces natural local supply and demand outcomes. The above two factors result in some very complex status quos. For example, take the country of New Zealand, whose significant apple growing industry is largely for export purposes - ostensibly, sending good fresh highly-valued NZ apples to other countries, where they'll fetch max $. Problem: apple w…

Low-wage industries wouldn't necessarily be a problem of the currency's purchasing power was rising rather than falling. But in most "developed" economies, we're institutional used theft via central banks targeting inflation, rather than recognizing that technological advancements ought to bring about gradual price deflation.

We've accepted for far too long the lie that low inflation (i.e. theft at a slow enough rate that working people hopefully won't notice) is necessary for economic growth. That's not true, but it introduces all sorts of systemic injustice into our economic systems.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#135

Post by jkepler » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:53 AM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #124

crtified wrote: post #38

Low wage industries struggle in high wage countries. Globalization displaces natural local supply and demand outcomes. The above two factors result in some very complex status quos. For example, take the country of New Zealand, whose significant apple growing industry is largely for export purposes - ostensibly, sending good fresh highly-valued NZ apples to other countries, where they'll fetch max $. Problem: apple w…

Get rid of minimum wage and replace it with UBI. Avoids the market distorting effects of minimum wage without leaving people destitute.

No! Creating more money doesn't create wealth. We need to cap the money supply, let working people save in money that isn't being stolen from them by design (central banks target rates of inflation), and trust that with the deflationary effects of technology, peoples' savings will gradually increase in purchasing power.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#136

Post by koheripbal » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:56 AM UTC

1letterunixname wrote: post #108

elguyosupremo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

family farm becomes a different thing when you start milking 1100 cows, it's usually a few of the family working with several undocumented immigrants. I live in upstate NY also tho our family sold the farm a couple of decades ago. The farm we used to own has gone towards organic milk to get a premium for their product, and the family that bought it now relies heavily on undocumented immigrants.

America relies heavily undocumented immigrants, from dairy to produce farm ag to meat processing to restaurants to landscaping. An open secret is that ICE doesn't touch meat ag's workers except for token enforcement. It's a dangerous occupation that includes underage child labor, deaths, and amputations without a social security net.

This comment lacks sources and has a biased tone.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#137

Post by youngNed » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:57 AM UTC

jkepler wrote: post #131

1letterunixname wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America relies heavily undocumented immigrants, from dairy to produce farm ag to meat processing to restaurants to landscaping. An open secret is that ICE doesn't touch meat ag's workers except for token enforcement. It's a dangerous occupation that includes underage child labor, deaths, and amputations without a social security net.

If its an open secret (like the open mystery in Ephesians 3:9,10), can you provide some sources to substantiate your claim? Thanks!

An open secret is something which is widely known to be true amongst people, but which is denied officially, for that very reason, providing sources is more usually than not possible for an open secret.

I have no idea if an open secret is like the open mystery of Ephesians 3:9,10.

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#138

Post by koheripbal » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:58 AM UTC

jkepler wrote: post #132

Arn_Thor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, from an economic standpoint, at least on the surface. But what of the social and ecological benefits of keeping alive small communities and small fields with diverse crops? The problems with large-scale monoculture farming are well known. A counter-argument is that food is too cheap. That obviously doesn't feel correct for someone struggling to pay the bills each month, but still... Workers are being sq…

> Workers are being squeezed on one end and small farmers are being squeezed on the other, and the gains go somewhere else entirely while small communities fall into despair and die out. This seems to have all started when we turned the dollar into a melting iceberg jn 1913 (created the Federal Reserve, which is basicaly a cabal of private banksters with a veneer of government), and it intensified when we decided to…

This comment has a very biased tone and lacks an understanding of basic economics

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#139

Post by raybb » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:59 AM UTC

1letterunixname wrote: post #109

mikrotikker wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NZ dairy farming become very intensified. Less than 200 acres is not worth it I heard. The effect on our environment is not good.

Meat and dairy ag are terrible for the following reasons: - climate change - 15% of GHGs not counting total inputs of fuel and feed - antibiotic resistance - antibiotics are used excessively to raise production, similar enough to the ones used in humans to evolve drug-resistant pathogens - pandemics - many animals peeing and pooping together, in close proximity, create an "institutional" Petri dish effect plus regula…

Taking this course soon to learn more about environmental impacts of insects as a food source.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35882520

Re: The last days of a 350-year-old family farm

#140

Post by jkepler » Wed, May 10, 2023, 10:00 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #27

Here's what I find funny: many of the people who extoll the virtues of capitalism also bemoan the death of small businesses and family farms. Or at least they pay it lip service. Why is this funny? Because small businesses and family farms are inherently more socialist than capitalist. Why? Because it is closer to owning the means of production and capturing the excess value of labor by those who are, well, laboring.…

I'm not sure how you can say that an owner-operated family farm is socialist. The family owns the capital in the farm, and profits from its use. That's pretty capitalistic.

What seems far more socialist is the crony capitalism of large agro-business that prices small, family-owned capitalist farmers out of the market by taking taxpayer-funded federal subsidies and using them to capture regulators and buy out their competition.