Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

America has a surplus of soy beans, it’s China that needs to import from us or Brazil. The mess farmers are in now is that China has decided Brazil is a better source for them given the current trade war going on.

China actually imports a lot of food from us, they seem to be the biggest consumer of chicken and pork feet, for example, which we don’t seem to have much use for. The current subsidies are because that export trade, which farmers have depended on and invested in, has basically disappeared now.

> Do people really believe this?

It's objectively true.

> That there are no policy programs from Democratic candidates?

Does increasing ICE funding count [1]?

> Nothing on healthcare, childcare, eldercare, education, housing, energy? Just no promises at all?

Literally none of those things. The Democratic Platform is "Trump bad" and to be a nicer, gentler face on fascism.

> I ask because that is obviously false

What policies do Democrats actually stand for?

This is so obviously true that you need look no farther than the NYC mayoral election. Zohran Mamdani came from nowhere to win the the Democratic primary on a fairly simple platform of universal childcare, cheaper food, faster and free buses and freezing the rent (on rent stabilized apartments). Those are all concrete policies. Less than one month into his administration and we hvave a pilot program for childcare [2].

And what was the Democratic Party response? Democratic Party leaders (eg Schumer, Jeffries, Booker) would not endorse him, despite him winning the primary. Some tepid endorsements came late. Instead the Democratic Party with a wink and a nod ran a spoiler candidate, Andrew Cuomo, who previous had to resign in disgrace from being governor after multiple allegations of sexual harassment.

Think back to what Kamala ran on. Not stopping the genocide, not even calling it a genocide (both positions of which were highly popular with the base, even more than a year ago), a tax credit for small business, having the "most lethal" (her words) military and an immigration plan that was indistinguishable from the Trump 2020 immigration plan, including building the wall that the Democrats had previously campaigned against. She mentioned "price gouging" one time. That was hugely popular because it was the one thing that went to the affordability crisis. But she never mentioned it again because Wall Street didn't like it. Nothing about healthcare or the cost of rent or education. Not a thing.

> I'm wondering what candidates could do beyond talking about their policies at length (which they do)

Who talks about affordability, housing, healthcare and inflation "at length"? There are a handful of Congresspeople who do (eg AOC) but it's not a party position and certainly none of the out 2028 presidential wannabes talk about it.

Here's a little test for you. Whenever they talk they'll usually say that someone (usually Trump) is bad. Maybe they'll say a certain situation is bad (eg high rents). Whenever a candidate or ap olitician does that, the very next thing out of their mouth should be a solution. "Yes rents are high and I'm going to tackle this by doing X, Y and Z." Every problem should be followed a solution. If you don't hear a solution, it's just empty platitudes.

But the Democratic Party doesn't do that. They don't like making promises because then they can't be held to promises they never made.

> ... that would get people to believe that they have policies.

Progressive policies are poular. Democratic pooliticians are not. One of my favorite examples of this is Missouri. Trump won the state by 19. There was a ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage, an obviously prograssive policy. It won by 15. So this progressive policy outperformed Kamala by 34 in a deep red state. Put another way, 17% of the voters who voted in 2024 in Missouri showed up to vote for Trump AND to increase minimum wage.

This isn't a messaging problem. The Kamala campaign spent over $100 million in Pennsylvania and didn't move the needle. It's a platform problem.

[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/cory-booker-ice-proposal-progressiv...

[2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/01/20/...

> so subsidized

Emphasis on "so", i.e. past obvious strategic rationale like food "security", there's reason to believe US ag has excessive subsidies. IMO answer is like every other "strategic" sector, farmland political economy has been captured by wealth (i.e. Bill Gates largest farmland owner). There's a fuckload of tax haven / loop holes tied to farmland that defers capital gains tax, estate/inheritance tax, property tax. Farmland is stable investment (because land) used to park wealth - it's an asset class, hence if held as asset, wealthy will double down / double dip to make sure it doesn't go idle, so they lobby all the "easy" crops to get massive subsidies and now something like 80% of subsidies goes to top 10% of recipients. US doesn't need to produce that much surplus corn/soy, but it's relatively easy to grow so big agri with capital sunk on those crops will lobby for continued subsidy of said crops, build up even more wasteful sectors like agri to energy (30-50% of corn goes to ethanol), and next thing you know a very inefficient ground water to subsidized agri commodity to gdp generator takes on it's own logic. TLDR, people good at at spread sheets rigged US agri like they rigged everything else.

You have to realize the vast majority of farmland is in states suceptable to floods, droughts, hurricanes, pests, frosts, etc. You can read stories of an off year where locusts were so bad they darkened the skies, for example.

Compounding this, farm equipment is freaking expensive. It's not abnormal for a large farm to have hundreds of thousands in payments on machinery. In a good year they make hundreds of thousands. In a bad year they're on the hook for hundreds of thousands. It can take only one bad year to wreck a farm, which is why their suicide rate is so high.

It's hard to imagine as a dev. But imagine you make 200k. Then next year, because of ransomware your boss installed, they tell you you owe 200k through no fault of your own. What would that do to your finances?

Insurance is a parasite. I'm usually against subsidies, but for as something as important as food, it seems reasonable.

Isn't most ag in the US just big business at this point?

Sure, there are still some small farms.. but there are also rich folk like the Treasury Secretary who maintain farms for status and financial benefits(farms get all sorts of special treatment for taxes, bankruptcy and inheritance).