Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, much of this is a political issue. America wants food standards that are different from many trading partners; fair enough. But it makes it impossible to export many farm goods as a result. This is outside of the current political climate, and has been going on for ages. It's just coming it a head now.
People outside of the US look down on inferior products like HFCS, bleached chicken, hormones used in beef cattle, prevalence of GM crops, the preventive use of antibiotics in poultry, hen battery cages, and permissive-by-default use of additives. If at least all those bad farming practices would lead to very affordable food, then one could make an argument for it... but currently the US just does worst of two worlds…
Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
171–180 of 432 posts
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#172This is a result of subsidies distorting market prices and encouraging malinvestment.
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#173Capitalism. The problem is capitalism. Any handouts for farmers go straight into the coffers of multinationals to pay for farm equipment, support for the locked down farm equipment, the patented seeds, the pesticides for the patented seeds and so on. The entire subsdization model is a profit opportunity for agricultural companies. And what do those companies wnat to do? Buy up the farms and run them themselves for mo…
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why tho do you feel the need to defend big agri businesses skirting employment law and pressuring wages downward by bringing in illegal people? Not sure if they (no matter if big business or small farm) could find enough American citizens to do those jobs, even if they were better paid...
Shouldnt they at least have to try? Who else gets to throw up their hands before even trying to raise wages and offer an attractve (as much as is possible) employment offer to domestic labor before they get to skip all that to get to the good stuff where they get to pay even shittier wages, afford less rights or access to judicial review for their workers, and basically totally control them thru deportation threats s…
The farmers would have to pay enough for "seasonal work spending all day doing manual labour in the sun without any AC" to compete with "year round work spending all day stacking shelves in supermarket where the temperature is at consistently in the range that doesn't put off the customers". And if the farmers got the former shelf stackers, then the supermarkets need to find more people to do the stacking. Food prices go up, both wholesale (because the farmers have to pay workers more) and retail beyond that (because so do the supermarkets).
I keep seeing stories about poorer Americans struggling with food prices even without this kind of cycle; but it doesn't end with just those two examples, it's all the low-pay jobs that are inherently more comfortable than farm labour, and if they find themselves short of labour and raise wages they too have to raise prices to balance their books, and whichever professions they in turn get labour from have the same choices, it ripples across the entire economy. Which may be good or bad for other reasons, but it's a massive impact across the entire economy, not something which is an easy one-liner.
Also, despite all those issues, look at this from the point of view of those workers: They've got seasonal work that pays them somewhat more than they'd earn in their home countries, and until very recently that work would not have come with a risk of being deported to a completely different country than they'd come from.
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#175Most independent farmers live in remote areas, far from money printers; they exist in a scarce monetary environment. It's hard to compete when your big corporate competitors exist in an environment where money is more abundant.
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I buy all this, and I think your analysis is spot on. There's z log of cognitive dissonance going on here. >> One common theme has been that farmers are by necessity highly independent. I think they like to think of themselves as highly independent. But in truth of course they are highly dependent, on city customers for their product, on foreign countries for exports, on federal govt for subsidies (both direct and in…
>and in some cases on immigrant labor. Why tho do you feel the need to defend big agri businesses skirting employment law and pressuring wages downward by bringing in illegal people? I find it a bit weird looking at the US how they seem to kneejerk into different camps depending on what the other side does with some old outliers like bernie who retain their line. >Ironically they may tolerate local govt, and had fede…
You are assuming this is an unintended effect, but it is very much the intended effect of bureaucratic rules and the reason large companies and conglomerates constantly lobby for them: they can afford the overhead costs (until the inevitable external disruptor comes around and totally eats their lunch, see europe) and smaller players cannot. These rules are moats built by big companies.
Doubly so for subsidies tied to complex filing and reporting requirements: large companies easily do this (they have department(s) just for handling these larger than whatever department in the government is handling the paperwork), small players can't and miss out.
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I buy all this, and I think your analysis is spot on. There's z log of cognitive dissonance going on here. >> One common theme has been that farmers are by necessity highly independent. I think they like to think of themselves as highly independent. But in truth of course they are highly dependent, on city customers for their product, on foreign countries for exports, on federal govt for subsidies (both direct and in…
>and in some cases on immigrant labor. Why tho do you feel the need to defend big agri businesses skirting employment law and pressuring wages downward by bringing in illegal people? I find it a bit weird looking at the US how they seem to kneejerk into different camps depending on what the other side does with some old outliers like bernie who retain their line. >Ironically they may tolerate local govt, and had fede…
They said immigrant. Why do you feel the need to equate that term to illegals? They are not the same thing.
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
People outside of the US look down on inferior products like HFCS, bleached chicken, hormones used in beef cattle, prevalence of GM crops, the preventive use of antibiotics in poultry, hen battery cages, and permissive-by-default use of additives. If at least all those bad farming practices would lead to very affordable food, then one could make an argument for it... but currently the US just does worst of two worlds…
Looks like the healthcare system.
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, much of this is a political issue. America wants food standards that are different from many trading partners; fair enough. But it makes it impossible to export many farm goods as a result. This is outside of the current political climate, and has been going on for ages. It's just coming it a head now.
People outside of the US look down on inferior products like HFCS, bleached chicken, hormones used in beef cattle, prevalence of GM crops, the preventive use of antibiotics in poultry, hen battery cages, and permissive-by-default use of additives. If at least all those bad farming practices would lead to very affordable food, then one could make an argument for it... but currently the US just does worst of two worlds…
The things which makes this a no go in the EU is ironically not the chlorination per-se, but the fact that chlorination is needed.
Like basically the EU thinks the way the US allows farmers to keep and raise chickens is so bad/unsanitary that chlorinating them isn't sufficient to make them safe for (repeated) consumption.
Which makes sense given that some of the things involved can lead to (non exhaustive list):
- non healthy chemicals _in_ the meat, not just on it
- increase in parasite, bacteria or virus infection _in_ the meat
- increased chance bacteria have some form of antibiotic resistance or other mutations
- not wanting to support "that" level of animal abuse (which is not just illegal but criminal in many EU countries, but also that doesn't mean that EU countries are that much better, they just drew a line on the level of animal abuse they tolerate which is in a different place then the line the US drew, but both are far away from the line animal protection organizations would drew)
Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's out of political fear. The irony is that it doesn't actually work all that well. Apparently, New Zealand abandoned all farm subsidies at some point and while the transition was abrupt and rough for farmers the farming sector recovered and is now performing much better. They abandoned it because they could no longer support it economically. They were producing lots of sheep that couldn't be sold. Now they produce…
>Here in the EU, farmers are giving away subsidized potatoes in Berlin currently. I looked into this story because it doesn't sound correct. It seems the potatoes were indeed sold but due to an unusually high yield this year, the trader decided not to pick them up so the farmer gave them away rather than try to find another buyer. And it was just one farm in Saxony. So this is not an EU or even a Germany wide issue.
https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-germany-potatoes-eu-agriculture...