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Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

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Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#141

Post by casey2 »

csours wrote: post #107

Of all the guns that rural Americans love, the humble foot-gun is the most beloved. --- Someone else can argue the morality, ethics, economics, and politics of it all, but VERY simply, US Federal Government Agencies are machines for redistributing wealth from cities to rural areas. Rural America voted quite heavily to stop those subsidies. That's what efficiency means. --- Maturity means suspending judgement and list…

It's more that farmers are through feeding city leeches. I don't think they care a lick about your "wealth"

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#142

Post by hulitu »

bruce511 wrote: post #124
csours wrote: post #107

Of all the guns that rural Americans love, the humble foot-gun is the most beloved. --- Someone else can argue the morality, ethics, economics, and politics of it all, but VERY simply, US Federal Government Agencies are machines for redistributing wealth from cities to rural areas. Rural America voted quite heavily to stop those subsidies. That's what efficiency means. --- Maturity means suspending judgement and list…

I agree. Personally I don't understand the love that agriculture shows to the Republican party, but hey you get what you vote for. It seems like this whole year has been implementing policy after policy that screws over agriculture. USAid (big purchaser) gone. 40 billion sent to Argentina. Antagonize Canadians (Canadians !!) so they boycott American produce. Tarif China so they'll reciprocate on soy beans. Deport far…

> I presume they have reasons,

They vote with the one party because they didn't had a lot of problems with it in power and, when they voted something else, it was worse.

Between two evils, people prefer the "familiar" one. Works the same in Europe's "democracies".

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#143

Post by casey2 »

9rx wrote: post #137
thinkcontext wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US produces an unbelievably enormous calorie surplus way beyond what is needed for the health of the country and in fact its detrimental. The biggest is not even used as food, over half of corn acreage is used for ethanol. That's an amount of land that's truly beyond comprehension. Its a horrible program as well, corn ethanol is worse than the gasoline it replaces in terms of carbon footprint when taking land use…

> over half of corn acreage is used for ethanol. That doesn't mean much without more details. Corn is used as a tool in the crop rotation to enable growing foods for humans to eat. As we learned before ethanol's time in the sun, farmers are going to grow it anyway to support their rotations. The only question is if it is better to recapture that into usable energy or to let it rot out in the field. > ... when taking…

corn->ethanol is government subsidized robbery. I paid for those nutrients let them rot. Now consumers have to buy more and eat more calories to get the same nutrition. All so we can have net negative ROEI ethanol?

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#144

Post by hervature »

b112 wrote: post #37

Canada has a thing called "Supply Management". It means that for some agricultural industries, we limit how many people can produce, for example, milk. This restriction keeps the price of milk stable, and high enough that farmers can make a profit. It may seem strange to some, but the goal is to ensure that we don't have to bail out our farmers. The alternative is as in the US, where anyone can produce milk, and the…

> The alternative is as in the US, where anyone can produce milk, and the price craters, and farmers need to be constantly bailed out.

Do you have references to bailouts specifically for dairy farms? The big bailouts recently were due to reciprocal tariffs. There is the Milk Loss Program but that is limited to 30 days of production per year. I would also classify this more of an insurance program than bailout.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#145

Post by cinntaile »

casey2 wrote: post #141
csours wrote: post #107

Of all the guns that rural Americans love, the humble foot-gun is the most beloved. --- Someone else can argue the morality, ethics, economics, and politics of it all, but VERY simply, US Federal Government Agencies are machines for redistributing wealth from cities to rural areas. Rural America voted quite heavily to stop those subsidies. That's what efficiency means. --- Maturity means suspending judgement and list…

It's more that farmers are through feeding city leeches. I don't think they care a lick about your "wealth"

That would bankrupt the farmers so I don't get this?

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#146

Post by enaaem »

Loughla wrote: post #62
nemomarx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pricing anything into the cost of food would be political poison. Paying farmers to grow nothing is considered preferable to that

It's not always about price. Paying farmers to grow nothing ensures they stay open if we need them to grow something. When I farmed we had set aside land paid for by the government. When there were predicted shortages on food in the future, we were allowed to farm that ground. You don't want farmers going under. It just takes one bad year that way and we're all fucked. I've never lived through a proper famine, but Gr…

That’s what foreign aid is for:

1. Keep strategic production capacity alive.

2. Spread American soft power.

3. Get warm fuzzy feelings because you prevented millions of people from dying of starvation.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#147

Post by Ekaros »

jadenPete wrote: post #6

This question may be naive, but why is the agricultural industry so subsidized? I understand the moral argument, but why, economically, does subsidizing farms result in a more efficient allocation of resources? I've heard that it's because farming as a business is full of unpredictability, but if that were the case, wouldn't there be a significant market for private insurance, and wouldn't the cost of that insurance…

Because agriculture is hard industry. The producer prices that is what the farmer gets are often laughable cut from final product. And this is due to farmers having little or no power in the system. Their products are made at certain time. And then they start declining in quality and finally rotting away. Most of the value ends up in other parts of the chain.

You could increase prices relatively little and farmers would earn lot more. But no one else is willing to allow that to happen. As such directly subsidizing them is more efficient.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#148

Post by watwut »

hulitu wrote: post #142
bruce511 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Personally I don't understand the love that agriculture shows to the Republican party, but hey you get what you vote for. It seems like this whole year has been implementing policy after policy that screws over agriculture. USAid (big purchaser) gone. 40 billion sent to Argentina. Antagonize Canadians (Canadians !!) so they boycott American produce. Tarif China so they'll reciprocate on soy beans. Deport far…

> I presume they have reasons, They vote with the one party because they didn't had a lot of problems with it in power and, when they voted something else, it was worse. Between two evils, people prefer the "familiar" one. Works the same in Europe's "democracies".

Nah. This is not true. They voted, because they looked forward the harm to liberals and cities and lgbt and women who dont conform and non whites. They wanted other to be harmed and openly talked about it. They thought they will be harmed only a little, like the last time.

Historically, republicans were not making policies good for them. By they promissed to be cruel and that was appealing.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#149

Post by watwut »

jmyeet wrote: post #52
toomuchtodo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~78% of farmers voted for him. They are directly responsible for their own outcome in this regard. Canada supplies 75-80% of US potash imports, and potash is a non-substitutable input in agriculture; without it, crop yields drop significantly. China no longer buy soybeans from US farmers, and instead now sources from South America; they have made a token 12M ton purchase, as they promised. https://www.thenation.com/a…

This is an example of taking the wrong lesson from history. The lesson from the last 20 years is that voters consistently vote to people who speak to their interests and their problems. The biggest electoral landslide in this time is Obama in 2008 and second place isn't even close. Obama ran as a progressive. He didn't govern as one but that's not really the point. Although it's a big part of the reason of why we're…

> The lesson from the last 20 years is that voters consistently vote to people who speak to their interests and their problems

This is false. Trump did not spoken to their problems.

He spoken to their hate, to they wish to harm other people. He is a crook and that appealed to them - they want to steal like him.

They voted for Trump, because they like seeing abuse. That was super clear, if you actually listen to what they say.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#150

Post by staplers »

casey2 wrote: post #141
csours wrote: post #107

Of all the guns that rural Americans love, the humble foot-gun is the most beloved. --- Someone else can argue the morality, ethics, economics, and politics of it all, but VERY simply, US Federal Government Agencies are machines for redistributing wealth from cities to rural areas. Rural America voted quite heavily to stop those subsidies. That's what efficiency means. --- Maturity means suspending judgement and list…

It's more that farmers are through feeding city leeches. I don't think they care a lick about your "wealth"

Says the guy on a computer.
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