Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

fb.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 432 posts

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#21

Post by ryuker16 »

bawolff wrote: post #12
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…

Not everything is about economics. As the romans said - you need bread and circuses to stay in power. Keeping food cheap serves an important political function. It also serves an important security function to keep food domestic because if you are at war with where your food is grown, you are not going to win that war.

The romans got their grain cheap from egypt.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#22

Post by OgsyedIE »

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…

Some of them date back to 'westward expansion', where they were incentives to encourage settler immigration (e.g. Texas tax exemption from 1839). They've stayed on the books because nobody wants the trouble of suggesting their removal.

More generally, however, it's a cost that is paid to support massive efficiency gains in other sectors. Like roads, aviation or the military. The freight system particularly would be unreliable if food prices floated according to only supply and demand, due to freights vulnerability to political upheavals, militias, etc.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#23

Post by kiba »

ggm wrote: post #7

Ag. can't just be about profit. There's a dimension which is national-strategic interest. Food security, the domestic food economy is important. It is my understanding that a lot of the US ag. sector is making inputs for processing for corn oil, fructose, ethanol, and for exports to markets which in turn target american ag, selling e.g. beef back to the US, fattened on US Soy. It's a complex web. I don't want US farm…

Growing excess amount of food is part of food security, but farmers are going bankrupt because they focused on labor efficient agricultural commodity products to the exclusion of everything else. For many farmers, it's not even a full time job

I rather we focus on increasing food security in other way.

Maybe we shouldn't be turning corns into cows as that reduce the amount of energy we are able to access. But how do we keep access to farmlands that we don't use now that we aren't turning corns into cows? I suppose we could just use these lands as pasture.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#24

Post by crm9125 »

ggm wrote: post #7

Ag. can't just be about profit. There's a dimension which is national-strategic interest. Food security, the domestic food economy is important. It is my understanding that a lot of the US ag. sector is making inputs for processing for corn oil, fructose, ethanol, and for exports to markets which in turn target american ag, selling e.g. beef back to the US, fattened on US Soy. It's a complex web. I don't want US farm…

"Ag. can't just be about profit."

Somewhere off in the distance I hear billionaires laughing.

This is only important if you care about the future of humans. At least in America, attention spans have shortened, empathy has decreased, and individualism has increased. Billionaires don't care about the future beyond their own life. And unfortunately, one of the worst of them is now the head of the country.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#25

Post by keithnz »

tananaev wrote: post #15
ggm wrote: post #7

Ag. can't just be about profit. There's a dimension which is national-strategic interest. Food security, the domestic food economy is important. It is my understanding that a lot of the US ag. sector is making inputs for processing for corn oil, fructose, ethanol, and for exports to markets which in turn target american ag, selling e.g. beef back to the US, fattened on US Soy. It's a complex web. I don't want US farm…

I recommend checking history of deregulation of agricultural industry in New Zealand. It didn't lose the industry. Actually the opposite happened. Persistent government subsidies are almost never a good idea long term. I understand that some temporary support might make sense in some cases, but not permanent one. It prevents innovation and optimization. And in the long run it usually makes more damage.

Having been in the NZ ag tech industry for the last 25+ years, US subsidies and tarrifs drove a lot of innovation in NZ (also Europe) and then US manufacturers in the spaces I've been in have pretty much collapsed when faced with better tech as farmers switched to using our ( or the European) tech.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#26

Post by itake »

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…

You can't eat private insurance.

The consequences of not being able to produce enough calories is severe. It is much better to overproduce and everyone gets fed than producing just enough and a climate event erases out 20% of our calorie production.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#27

Post by jwcooper »

The problem isn't with the farmers. The problem is the monopolies that surround the farmers.

They buy their seeds from massive corporations that have patents on seeds. They sell their produce to global multi-national corporations that set the prices they'll purchase at. They buy their machinery from John Deere or Case IH at extremely high prices.

They have no negotiating power and are squeezed between these massive corporations. This ends up leading to farmers having to sell land to corporations that will then farm it and extract subsidies from the government.

When a farmer receives a subsidy, it usually just ends up in the pockets of Cargill or Monsanto, with whom they already owe money to.

The whole system is broken from top to bottom.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#28

Post by lateforwork »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #18

Quite surprised there wasn't mention of the Trump tariffs on China causing the collapse of China imports of US soybeans, which by the way, has persisted even though the original tariffs were reduced, causing lasting damage to farmers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/01/17/china-pur...

Almost 78% of farmers voted for Trump [1]. These are the guys that got Trump elected. Polls show that support for President Trump among farmers remains high, hovering around 50-60%. That means these are the guys that are keeping Trump in power. When support among farmers drops to 20% level GOP legislators will feel emboldened to remove Trump from power.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjedvwed1xgo

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#29

Post by smallmancontrov »

jwcooper wrote: post #27

The problem isn't with the farmers. The problem is the monopolies that surround the farmers. They buy their seeds from massive corporations that have patents on seeds. They sell their produce to global multi-national corporations that set the prices they'll purchase at. They buy their machinery from John Deere or Case IH at extremely high prices. They have no negotiating power and are squeezed between these massive c…

Yes, and the man who broke the system, who installed the loophole that allowed decades of mergers and trust-building, was even named Robert Bork!

He was a Nixon/Reagan flunky, naturally, but the Dems ignored the issue for a long time. It was exciting to finally see the first real pushback in the last administration under Lina Khan. So many upset businessmen on TV! Unfortunately, elections have consequences, and the work did not continue.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#30

Post by tw04 »

tananaev wrote: post #15
ggm wrote: post #7

Ag. can't just be about profit. There's a dimension which is national-strategic interest. Food security, the domestic food economy is important. It is my understanding that a lot of the US ag. sector is making inputs for processing for corn oil, fructose, ethanol, and for exports to markets which in turn target american ag, selling e.g. beef back to the US, fattened on US Soy. It's a complex web. I don't want US farm…

I recommend checking history of deregulation of agricultural industry in New Zealand. It didn't lose the industry. Actually the opposite happened. Persistent government subsidies are almost never a good idea long term. I understand that some temporary support might make sense in some cases, but not permanent one. It prevents innovation and optimization. And in the long run it usually makes more damage.

It would appear that to remain competitive they had massive consolidation, and with that an increase in animal density leading to major issues with water pollution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CraFarms

So I guess yay deregulation, now with more capitalist privatized profits with socialized costs!

Post reply on HN