Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance • Hacker News Board

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#321

Post by pxc » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:14 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #257

mlrtime wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ou…

Small farmers are generally aware that this makes no financial sense. They're participating in a multigenerational family tradition. There are also typically relatives urging those still farming to sell the farm so they can get their share (which may not be that huge, when all is divvied up).

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#322

Post by treis » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:15 PM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #126

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've been curious about this myself, and I listened to some pro-Trump people who seem otherwise intelligent that tried to explain this effect. One common theme has been that farmers are by necessity highly independent. They can't rely on government services as much as city folk, because everything and everyone is potentially an hour's drive away. They don't see the effect of their taxes being spent, because their loc…

"retrained as tech support" isn't a real solution either.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#323

Post by FireBeyond » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #164

01100011 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

>farms get all sorts of special treatment for taxes, bankruptcy and inheritance When I see the amount of exploits the wealthy use to avoid taxes and maximize profits, I realize working a 9-5 job is for fools, considering how much taxes I'm paying on my salary.

In my town, a capital city, near my home there is a vape lounge. In the parking lot of this lounge are 3 Ford F-350 King Ranch Dual Rear Wheels, adorned with a small amount of decalling on the side for the vape lounge. Each of these trucks goes for about $80K.

But I suppose they're "company vehicles".

And this is before we get to the really wealthy.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#324

Post by BearOso » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:19 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #316

gruez wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>inferior products like HFCS, [...] prevalence of GM crops The others I agree with, but there's no evidence that HFCS or GM crops are bad.

What? On HFCS: While glucose is used by nearly every cell in the body and has tight regulation by insulin, fructose is largely processed by the liver, where it more easily is converted into fat, triglycerides and uric acid. Intrinsically this messes with our bodies insulin resistance, for a start, contributing to diabetic issues, as well as increased fatty liver disease, and elevated triglycerides. It bypasses our bo…

HFCS came about when there was an abundance of corn and nothing to do with it. So when they discovered corn syrup they added corn subsidies and heavily tariffed cane sugar. Ethanol appeared and is a far greater corn sink, so HFCS no longer even serves that purpose.

But the processing industry doesn't want to disappear (money and job losses), so they lobby and the status quo remains. Same with private health care in a cozy position where they act as an unneeded middleman. It's too lucrative to certain people, and they won't willingly give it up.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#325

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:21 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #129

Spooky23 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to say that. I grew up in a dairy county in upstate ny. Solid democrats. The board room of the local farm bureau had photos of FDR on the wall. The party really abandoned rural voters and farmers. Money in politics didn’t just affect Republicans — the democrats abandoned the traditional party structures and followed the money. There’s no more democratic picnics, etc. I’m not defending the GOP. They’ve embra…

> The party really abandoned rural voters and farmers. Not to defend the Dem party (only the lesser of two evils, at least lately), but in what way? Because farm subsidies seem fairly consistent regardless of which party was in power[0] [0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-...

There's literally zero platform coverage for rural issues. The hotbeds of liberal politics weren't NYC and Boston 50 years ago -- it was Iowa and Wisconsin. Subsidies today are mostly about stabilizing a few commodities.

Dairy is the best example, it's an industry that scales down just fine with a regulated market. That was thrown away and massive dairy producers have literally destroyed the supply side of the market. 90% of dairy operations in New York have shut down since 1980. I worked on a farm as a teenager in the 90s that has been in continuous operation since the Dutch colonial period in the 1600s. Almost 200 years of that was significant dairy operations. They probably had 50-100 cows in the 1970s, but that business was gone by 1990-1992. Today, the family boards horses to pay their taxes and work for the government.

Dairy is important because it supports a large ecosystem of business. Vet practices. Laborers. Dairy processing and cheese making. The remaining producers in New York are usually captive producers for vertically integrated businesses like convenience stores, co-ops or scaled operations in Western NY. All of that is dead, and that pattern repeats everywhere.

Even in big agriculture states like say Iowa, the "farmers" are mostly tenants and employees now. All of these Trumper idiots who are going bankrupt will have their land purchased by PE, foreign capital or other funds and will become workers.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#326

Post by toyg » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:22 PM UTC

legacynl wrote: post #268

dathinab wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting Side Note: bleached/chlorinated chicken 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 thi…

> but the fact that chlorination is needed. You're wrong. The whole point is this: in EU, you cannot chlorinate your chickens. This means that to sell chicken, you need to make sure that your chicken is good to eat without chlorination (by making sure your whole production chain is sanitized up to sufficient level). In the US you don't need to make sure your production chain is super high sanitation quality because y…

> The whole point is this: in EU, you cannot chlorinate your chickens.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue, really (pun intended).

In the end, it doesn't really matter why things got where they are - what matters is where we want them to go next. And US interests seem to be hell-bent on continuing to wash chickens. So they will continue to be banned from Europe.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#327

Post by adregan » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:23 PM UTC

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…

> This question may be naive, but why is the agricultural industry so subsidized?

I believe this is the same tune we hear in other industries: it’s the effect of the consolidation of companies which provide the inputs (seed and chemicals) leading to a lack of competition and the increase in prices on a captive consumer base.

When farmers feel the crunch due to macro forces in the market (and tariffs), the government effectively acts as a backstop for the conglomerates providing the inputs. Think of the farmer’s hand as an open palm, the subsidy flows through it directly to the company to which they are indebted (“the money is in the ground” as I used to hear during a brief time in crop insurance).

While these subsidies may have initially began with the quaint notion of protecting against scarcity (as many sibling replies seem to believe), the reality is that farmers are being squeezed just as the rest of us. Profits are way up while competition is way down.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#328

Post by munk-a » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:31 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #282

legacynl wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the fact that chlorination is needed. You're wrong. The whole point is this: in EU, you cannot chlorinate your chickens. This means that to sell chicken, you need to make sure that your chicken is good to eat without chlorination (by making sure your whole production chain is sanitized up to sufficient level). In the US you don't need to make sure your production chain is super high sanitation quality because y…

>The real reason for the difference in policy is the incentives that it creates for the meat-producers. In the US there is no incentive to keep sanitation up in the production chains because the chicken will be chlorinated anyway. This actually incentivizes sloppy (cheaper) production methods over ones that are more sanitized but more costly. If there's no actual downsides from the chlorine, what's the issue? In many…

The poor sanitation in American poultry farming can have other negative effects outside the meat being safe. Such unsanitary conditions make dangerous conditions for workers including an elevated risk of novel avian flues and, if ever the chlorination isn't properly executed, the meat is extremely unsafe to eat.

Chlorination is a good idea when you can't control the supply chain (i.e. drawing water through infrastructure that's been compromised) but the better solution (if it's reasonable) is always to fix the supply chain. In the case of a city relying on chlorination vs. bringing clean water in by train the chlorination is a clear winner. When it comes to meat it's a cost issue and the EU made the decision to force that cost onto the producer while the US has made the decision to bear the cost at large.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#329

Post by munk-a » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #283

dathinab wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting Side Note: bleached/chlorinated chicken 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 thi…

> the fact that chlorination is needed Indeed. High levels of bacteria are a symptom of poor hygiene and low animal welfare due to conditions which are not permitted in European farms. If you know the chicken is going to be chlorine washed, then you end up being lax higher up the chain. There is also a genuine argument to be had as to, for example, whether the practice contributes towards antimicrobial resistance.

> There is also a genuine argument to be had as to, for example, whether the practice contributes towards antimicrobial resistance.

The chlorination is less in question here compared to the extreme overuse of antibiotics in animal farming in America. But it is fair to be skeptical of America's chlorination approach due to the increased danger of animal-human disease crossovers. Poor sanitation can lead to a lot of elevated work risks for employees.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#330

Post by 9rx » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

thinkcontext wrote: post #319

9rx wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 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. This doesn't make sense in light of the large expansion of corn acreage that corresponds to ethanol policy. ht…

> large expansion of corn acreage

Corn acres have expanded, but the same is also true of other crops. Given corn's role in the crop rotation, it stands to reason that when other crops expand, corn comes with it. There are a lot more mouths to feed nowadays. The world's population has grown by approximately 30% since the last change in ethanol policy.

> that corresponds to ethanol policy.

The ethanol subsidy in the last policy change ended in 2012, yet, as you point out, corn acres have continued to expand, which seems contrary to what you are trying to suggest. What specific correspondence are you finding?