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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

#81

Post by sgc »

reillyse wrote: post #65
WarmWash wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fix is more expensive food. Everyone loves the mom and pop businesses but shops at walmart for those rock bottom prices. We can have our fresh family farms back, but you're paying double for your food. We have the system we have because people value cheap/affordable over everything, regardless of what they upvote on the internet.

Europe has a very robust, high quality and cheap food system. Food is extremely high quality, environment is managed and wealth is distributed with support for small farmers. High quality food is a fraction in Europe of what you pay in the US. There is additional cost to taxpayers of Europe but US taxpayers are paying a ton for the US system too but just getting worse outcomes. This can be done.

This is like the education or gun debates, or basically any quality of life message you might have. It's almost impossible to get your message heard. There will always be some non-reason why everything is oh-so-different in the US. It's very frustrating to live here with all the matter-of-fact head-in-the-sand know-it-all bloviating.

Meanwhile our teachers are suffering enormously, our education is terrible, our roads are terrible, we are poisoning ourselves with substandard food, we have extremely expensive but relatively poor healthcare to deal with the problems that creates, we have no time off and are labor slaves where maximum effort for minimum pay is the norm, and half the country has become violently oppressive to the point of absolutely thriving off the suffering they perceive inflicted on others. And still, we know better - of course - because we are Americans.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#82

Post by seattle_spring »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #72
lateforwork wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests. I mean, name one thing that Trump has done to help farmers more than he hurt them with the tariffs? (Subsidies they already had, regardless of the party in power.) What are they getting in return for their vote? The safety of knowing that trans athletes are banned and some Guatemalans in far away "liberal" cities have…

> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.

Something that's been made very clear over the last few election cycles is that a lot of voters will go against their own interests, as long as it hurts their perceived "enemy" more than themselves.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#84

Post by 9rx »

b112 wrote: post #76
newsclues wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada dumps good milk down the drain while people go hungry and suffer high food prices. The supply management system is not perfect.

You can't produce an exact amount of food. It isn't an assembly line, it's farming, it's biological. You need to aim for excess, to ensure enough is produced during drought, animal sickness, and other variability. What Canada does is ensure there is excess, but not crazy amounts. It also ensures the market price is fair to farmers. What you call "high food price" we call "farmers not going bankrupt". And while nothin…

> supply management is far better than the alternatives.

Why, then, only dairy, poultry, eggs, and — at least until 2007 when the government bought back the quota — tobacco production? If the farmers growing the foods that are actually deemed important in a healthy diet end up bankrupt, no big deal?

> It also ensures the market price is fair to farmers.

Well, it creates a two-tier system where the 'blessed' farmers who are born into it (or born into a European farm that can be sold at a high enough price to buy a farmer in Canada out) have artificially high incomes to spend on land, equipment, etc. at inflated prices. It is hard to think that is fair to all the other farmers who have to compete against the farmers of the world when selling their product but have to pay supply managed farmer prices for inputs.

I suppose everything is in the eye of the beholder. I'll grant you that all the other farmers' retirement plan is to sell off their land to a supply managed farmer who will pay way more than it is worth. That keeps the peace. Bit sad to see everything go to those producers who get special treatment, though.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#85

Post by triceratops »

jmyeet wrote: post #71
loeg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama did not run as a progressive, lol. Much of the rest of this is equally ahistorical. Living conditions and wages haven't gotten worse over the past 50 years.

You must be young because nobody who lived through his campaign would say that. He was anti-war. In 2007-2008. Only a few years when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution, something that helped sink Hilary Clinton's 2008 bid. He ran on universal healthcare. He ran on renewable energy. He ran on increased LGBTQ rights. He won Iowa by 9 doing this. To a war hero. Kamala lost by 13. To a c…

> when the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution

The majority of Democrats in the Senate voted in favor (29-21). In the House a much larger majority voted against (81-126) the resolution.

A total of 7 Republicans voted against the resolution. Between both chambers.

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

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#86

Post by kayodelycaon »

tw04 wrote: post #5

I wonder if at some point before large corporations finish buying up the last of the family farms in America, if rural America will figure out Trump and his maga republicans were never their friends.

I don’t think it would. Humans really like to blame other people for things they inflict on themselves. This is less painful than learning self-awareness.

The current Republican Party blatantly preys on this weakness and gives people an enemy to hate so they can keep fleecing them.

This is different than the Democrats, who can’t get their shit together and have a common goal.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#87

Post by lateforwork »

seattle_spring wrote: post #82
insane_dreamer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests. I mean, name one thing that Trump has done to help farmers more than he hurt them with the tariffs? (Subsidies they already had, regardless of the party in power.) What are they getting in return for their vote? The safety of knowing that trans athletes are banned and some Guatemalans in far away "liberal" cities have…

> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests. Something that's been made very clear over the last few election cycles is that a lot of voters will go against their own interests, as long as it hurts their perceived "enemy" more than themselves.

Right. This article discusses how race plays a central role in the opposition to universal health care policies like Obamacare, particularly focusing on how some of the resistance in the South is due to white populations not wanting Black Americans to receive free care: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/univ...

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#88

Post by triceratops »

kiba wrote: post #43
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…

Subsides tend to get absorbed by monopolists of all kind. This is why UBI is a nonstarter. It will just get absorbed by landlords. This is why you need to break up monopolies or tax them. The problem is societal endorsement of monopoly rights all kind to the point of invisibility. Witness any conversations about IP rights and lands. But also farmers are in this situation because they chosen to compete in an overcrowd…

> This is why UBI is a nonstarter. It will just get absorbed by landlords

Not necessarily. People live where they live because there are jobs. If they don't need jobs because of UBI, or they can take lower-paying jobs, they can move wherever housing is plentiful.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#89

Post by jwcooper »

9rx wrote: post #58
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…

> it usually just ends up in the pockets of […] Monsanto Who? Monsanto closed up shop and sold off its assets to Bayer and BASF many years ago.

Oh yup, you're right on that. I guess my point still stands as Bayer and BASF kind of fit the bill as well.

Re: Significant US farm losses persist, despite federal assistance

#90

Post by pear01 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
vkou wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Perhaps one of the consequences of her actually pushing back on this was one of the many reasons the owner class overwhelmingly backed Trump.

~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…

Farmers like Ragland are overrepresented.

Why do these rural states (several of which have a total population less than that of major metro areas on the coasts) have two senators?

The senate is an antidemocratic institution. The compromise that every state gets two senators made sense when we were a weak, newborn and vulnerable nation, with a total population of less than 3 million people. Not anymore. The founders likely didn't want people like Ragland to have the vote anyway. They were not salt of the earth farmers they were largely plantation and merchant and legal elites. Ragland is the dumb mob rule they feared.

Maybe the 17th amendment was a mistake. At the very least, why stop there? The constitution is not sacred, as established and as written, the founders would have given Ragland less representation.

Perhaps in the spirit of actual democracy and modern reform, it is time to revisit the idea that every state gets two senators. Given what is really going on here is these states vote against their own interests and then rob blue states to cover up the shortfall. Why are blue states tolerating it?

It would be one thing if it was just about money, but it's not. These populations are being deputized in a culture war that tells them to hate you while they take your money. They need a reality check.

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