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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

#251

Post by ben_w »

nehal3m wrote: post #177
modo_mario wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>Why tho do you feel the need to defend big agri businesses skirting employment law and pressuring wages downward by bringing in illegal people? They said immigrant. Why do you feel the need to equate that term to illegals? They are not the same thing.

> They said immigrant. Why do you feel the need to equate that term to illegals? They are not the same thing.

While true, the estimates are that about half of agricultural workers in the USA are undocumented (AKA "illegal").

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#252

Post by throwaway2037 »

modo_mario wrote: post #159
bruce511 wrote: post #131

Earlier 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…

    > Why tho do you feel the need to defend big agri businesses skirting employment law and pressuring wages downward by bringing in illegal people?
It is interesting that you immediately jumped to "illegal people". When I read it, I thought about the US H-2A via for temp farm hands. This page: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-d... ... says 385,000 visa holders in 2024. That is a lot!

Since you are based in Belgium, how many native-born Belgians are still performing low-skill manual labour on a farm? Probably very few. Most of them are probably from the poorest parts of EU or some kind of temp farm hand visa. Specifically: Fruits and vegetables require lots of low-skill manual labor for harvest and packing.

    > At the same time gov requirements make it almost impossible to run an smaller independent farm
Call me cynical, but I am not nostalgic for the "smaller independent farm". If farms want to be smaller and independent in the 21st century, they need to distinguish themselves with product (usually: organic or "free range"), branding, and value add (example: create a cheese brand that only uses your special organic cow's milk). If they cannot or will not, then they will need to sell their business to the mega agg corps.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#253

Post by direwolf20 »

nemomarx wrote: post #249
mlrtime wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the US will not depend on foreign aid to [primarily] feed it's citizens. Never going to happen.

You've got it backwards - foreign aid using US grown crops provides increased very stable demand. Take any excess grains made in a given year and ship them to another country, the farmers get paid well for it so they keep their productive capacity high, and the marginal cost of getting it to a charity overseas is low anyway. This means there's always enough grain to feed our citizens.

And it keeps foreign countries dependent on us and gives us another avenue to coerce them. Wins for us all around.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#254

Post by masfuerte »

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…

Funnily enough, British farmers did much the same thing. They voted for Brexit and now they are finding that the British government gives much less of a fuck about them than the EU did.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#255

Post by xienze »

pjc50 wrote: post #225
mlrtime wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the first thing is removing identity politics, especially in replies or discussions. Also, not viewing it as "Come to my side". This isn't star wars, rebellion vs empire.

Convenient shorthand for a huge number of issues. OK then, how about convincing them to support: - impeachment and prosecution for high level corruption (e.g. the Presidential cryptocurrency) - prosecution of constitution-violating police and Federal paramilitaries, e.g. in Minnesota? - leaving LGBT people alone legislatively (at this point I'm not going to ask for improvements, just that the situation not be made wo…

[flagged]

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#256

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

mexicocitinluez wrote: post #244
mlrtime wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, no replies but people don't like your message.

No, they aren't. Go look at the bills coming before congress and tell me how many are voted purely along party lines? Then look at the bills themselves. And the vast majority of the party is actually working towards real change. And guess what's happening to those who don't (the Schumers and Pelosis of the party)? They have a 5% approval rating and have to CONSTANTLY deal with people from their own party telling them…

They are never voted out.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#257

Post by throwaway2037 »

mlrtime wrote: post #222
kasey_junk wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What % of farms in your area are small family farms (either by count or economic %)? In the country it’s like 40% of the farms and 20% of the value. That stat alone shows the real problem, big agricultural is wildly more efficient (without wading into the externalities). And big agricultural gets the lions share of the benefit of the subsidies. I’m not even sure that’s a bad thing but half the reason these conversati…

I'm not sure the definition of "family" farms, you can have a family name corporation that is still $100M+ in value. Even then I have no idea who all of them are. My family farm is small enough they alone cannot support a entire family upper-middle class lifestyle, but the land is still worth millions. But they all have notes, good years mean the crop pays the bank and maybe some supplies for next year.

    > My family farm is small enough they alone cannot support a entire family upper-middle class lifestyle, but the land is still worth millions.
This makes no financial sense to me. I call this: "asset rich, but cash poor". It is like living in a house that you inherited worth "millions", but working a job that "alone cannot support a entire family upper-middle class lifestyle". Simple solution: Sell the house. Cash out and invest in the stock market or rental real estate. You should do the same. If what you say is really true, then call Dave Ramsey (or someone similar) and ask for their advice. They will say the same.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#258

Post by dataviz1000 »

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…

My favorite example of this is RFD TV [0], a tv channel dedicated to farmers.

The name came from Rural Free Delivery, which was a program by the USPS to ensure farmers in rural areas received mail because it was not profitable for private carriers to deliver in remote and rural areas.

Around 2010, realizing that the message of a government program was good for farmers they completely white washed and removed the concept of free [something] from big government being good from all branding, websites, and tv programs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFD-TV

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#259

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#260

Post by xienze »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #80
lateforwork wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOP has long pursued a strategy of getting rural whites to vote against their self interest. This is why they play up cultural issues such as trans people using women's bathrooms and such other topics that uneducated people can readily grasp.

I suppose they've successfully instilled the fear that "our way of life" will be destroyed if they don't vote for Trump, despite 1) being a lie, and 2) a vote that will make things worse for them. It's amazing how powerful these relatively minor cultural issues can be. It certainly makes for interesting case studies for future political science and sociology university (if the humanities survive).

> instilled the fear that "our way of life" will be destroyed if they don't vote for Trump, despite 1) being a lie

You may find this hard to believe, but there are a lot of people old enough to see how rapidly "our way of life" has gone down the toilet. It's not a myth, it's happening.

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