Of farm subsidies, Matt Zeitlin says "Don't make it fair; make it die" and asks:
Why should “family farmers” be subsidized at all? What is a family farmer? If subsides are bad because they undercut the prices of local farmers in the developing world, doesn’t the wheat a “family farmer” grows still undercut a Ghanan farmer? What about the quotas and tariffs that unfairly advantage all American farmers?Family farmers needn’t all die out in a world without perverse subsidies and price supports. The growing interest in local, organic and humanely grown food all benefits small, non-industrial farms. But it’s still not clear to me why it’s in the government’s job to devote billions of dollars protecting any farmers — be they family or corporate.
Ultimately, well meaning groups like Oxfam and well meaning people like Yglesias and Garance are just going to have this rhetoric of the noble family farmer — who’s never been a smaller portion of the US population — used against them to justify the continuance of our insane agricultural polices.
The utter wrongness of our farm policy is one thing that almost every urban American, from conservative through libertarian straight on via liberal into crazed enviro-anarchist, can agree upon. And they're right: farm subsidies are stupid; go mostly to large businesses that should either figure out how to make money on farming without subsidies, or deploy their capital more productively; and exacerbate poverty among the poorest of the poor, farmers in the developing world.
And yet, there's a certain callousness to the way we dismiss those farmers. My mother grew up on a small farming town in western New York state, and there was something worth preserving in that way of life. It was, to be sure, narrow and parochial, two things that city-dwellers hate. But it also found a way to include everyone in the life of the community, from poor to rich, dumb to smart, infant to dodderer. And the bonds that those people had were tighter and more dependable than those of a mobile society. My grandfather died surrounded by every single living person he had ever loved--his wife, his children, the best friend from high school who was also his brother in law. My great aunt Helen, who lived at the assisted living facility attached to the hospital where he died, was with him eight or more hours a day. It was a better way to die than anyone in a younger generation could hope for.
I would hate it, of course; I'm not cut out for small-town living. And even if I wanted to live that way, there is no way to actually preserve it. Farm subsidies, aside from all their other flaws, are hopeless at actually keeping communities like that going, because like every other form of government intervention, end up benefitting not the telegenic recipients the policies are aimed at, but the special interests who are sufficiently well-connected to divert the policy to their own ends.
We could, however, be more sensitive to why those communities continue to support subsidies. If you have ever had a glimmer of sympathy for a brownstone owner who wants to keep their neighborhood exactly as it is even though this means that the poor will have trouble finding housing, then you should be able to grasp why farmers want the government to help them preserve something they love.
Well, I've never had any trouble understanding why people like to receive subsidies. It's kinda comfortable to receive wealth that other people have created.
O.K., I grasp it.
Now toughen up and help pull the damn plug.
And the bonds that those people had were tighter and more dependable than those of a mobile society.
Weird description. My mum came from a small farming town, and the feuds she describes were more vicious than those I've seen in the city.
Although they certainly were dependable. A good feud would last for generations.
This guy's "make it die" argument neglects to mention what I believe to be the main reason to continue some form of aid to farmers that allows for our domestic food production capabilities to remain high:
Food Security.
We should not outsource the production of food to China, or anywhere else. It's not safe and it's not smart.
Of course, any scheme created should prefer the family farmer as he is both steward of the land and member of the community in a way that agribusiness isn't (Wendell Berry is extremely fun to read on that). This was your point, I believe.
Further, the more diffused the ag production is, the less chances of catastrophic environmental disaster. Think of the effect of corporate hog farm lagoon spill of waste from 60,000 hogs into one place as compared to spills from 60 lagoons of 1,000 hogs each spread all over the United States. One of these will produce an epic disaster.
Deciding what to do with ag policy is difficult, but when people like this Zeiller decide to criticize they never quantify the risks involved in ending a system of institutional support for family farmers. A part of that risk is clearly catastrophic and should be weighed as such in any cost-benefit analysis.
In fact, it's very similar to the current outsourcing of our military to private companies. Sure it looks cheap on paper, but when Blackwater rampages, is that really good for America?
The latest news from the development economics folks is that we shouldn't oversell the likely benefits for third-world farmers of eliminating first-world subsidies. They can't actually make much cheese in the developing world, for instance -- not the kind we like to eat, anyway. And much of the farming in the developing world is just too small-scale, inefficient and low-quality to supply the Western market. Then there are safety and quality issues that are becoming more and more important lately, and inspections and reformed farming practices will raise the prices of third-world produce. In the long run getting rid of tariff barriers will help create opportunities for agribusiness in the third world, but it's probably not going to immediately benefit "the poorest of the poor" very much -- subsistence or small-scale cash crop farmers in the Sahel, for instance. I mean, I guess if Laughing Cow cheese got more expensive, I can imagine Fulani herders in the Sahel being able to demand higher prices locally for that weird tough cheese they make, but they're not going to suddenly start exporting it to Europe.
The difficulty with subsidies is that it seems like all or nothing to the people getting them. The small farmer doesn't probably think that industrial farmers need subsidies, but I'd bet they are afraid if the subsidies are modified, they will simply end. OR oddly enough, benefit the factory farms over the small ones. Guess who can brandish the most force in congress?
The problem with farming at the small end is that it is difficult to maximize. You have a certain amount of land that you own or lease, and there is a certain amount of crop that you can grow there. The only way to maximize beyond that, is to use more of everything, esp. more LAND. More land, more people etc. If the family farmer, and I mean family, where it's a core of related family members and a small number of hired hands, doesn't want or have the capacity to grow, then they get stuck, essentially.
My favorite example is Rocky Ford Colorado. Some of the best cantaloupes you will ever have. But the price hasn't changed much since I was a kid. Depending on the sale, it's still under a buck a pound. Meanwhile gasoline and diesel have tripled, and the cost of machinery has quadrupled and more. Add to that the years where it rains too much, or not enough, etc. and the vaguries of farming are no longer worth doing.
I know that most would say 'well then don't farm' but there is a ripple effect. A small farmer does it to make a living. And industrial farm does it to make a profit. ADM for example has wall street to worry about. So they do whatever they need to, to maximize. Even if that short term gain hurts the environment. Why should they care, they don't have to live there.? A small farmer has to compete against goods grown industrially somewhere else in the world and shipped to the US, and dumped on the market. The corn growers languished for years in the marketplace where their price per bushel was low. Now they are more profitable for the wrong reasons. Ethanol production is driving that price, and it too won't last.
The paradox here is that industrial farming cuts both ways. They get the most subsidy AND they undercut everyone else in the market because of their economy of scale. That's what gets the price of corn depressed for years by ADM. Now that it's going up it benefits ADM disproportionately.
The thing that may save the smaller farmer is actually the environmental movement to a certain degree. If people try to buy locally, or at least w/in 500 miles, they will not only get a better product because it was brought to you closer to ripe, instead of shipped green ripening in transit, but there is less environmental damage. Because you didn't ship cantaloupe from halfway around the world, using all those resources to do so.
Farming is a full gonzo of difficult questions because it is not entirely like any other business. It is tied to the land, it is tied to the environment, it is tied to the willingness of someone to do hard work. If it is easier to head off to college, and get that MBA and make 4X what your father could hope to make, plus medical benes, retirement and so forth, why are you going to farm? If your kids all leave home, and none of them wants to take over the family business, what is going to keep you from selling your water rights? Even to a large suburban area 300 miles away, so that your kids can water their lawns when they come home from those jobs. The land doesn't care, it just goes back to what it was before we came. The fact that we have to get our apples from New Zealand, our cantaloupe from Chile, shouldn't matter. Except where we become a net importer of everything.
I can't say if it's worth saving all that by fixing a broken system. Family farming is on it's way out as much because it's too hard to bear for younger generations when there are better opportunities, as because no-one cares where the food comes from as long as it's cheap.
I would like to see the subsides be ended or overhauled too, just because they are benefitting the wrong people anyway. But I cannot help but think that there are some things we are going to rue letting slip away long after they are gone. If someday China hamstrings us with a grain embargo, because we allowed all of our grain production to go overseas, we'll definitely be blaming ourselves for lack of foresight...
"My mother grew up on a small farming town in western New York state, and there was something worth preserving in that way of life."
In other words, markets are great, except when have a negative effect on people I like. It's OK for auto workers to lose their jobs--in fact, that's progress--but farmers are special. Megan, you're worse than the people you get paid to make fun of.
What are you talking about? I'm not arguing in favor of farm subsidies; I'm just arguing in favor of a little compassion for the folks who want them. The fact that there was something worth preserving does not, as I explicitly said, mean that it can in fact be preserved. I don't think it can, and I also don't think that, if it could, farm subsidies would be the right way to go about it.
I think it's sad when auto towns die too.
I have no compassion for people who want farm subsidies. I have no compassion for people who want auto trade protectionism. I have absolutely no %&(#@))@##$$$ compassion who are trying to preserve their neighbourhood.
They are all parasites espusing leftist rhetoric so that they may rob those less well of than themselves in aid of their continuing abuse of those less well off than themselves. They are at heart deeply evil people, who are all the worse because they believe themselves to be good.
There are sensible reasons for some subsidies.
Prime arable land is a limited resource. Often, when prices drop, that land will be more valuable to developers than as farmland, but that process does not reverse. Abandoned tract-housing doesn't get demolished to make way for farmland when the price of beans goes up. It isn't always the marginal land that gets paved over either. Prime farmland just outside a big city is more likely to be developed than marginal land in the middle of nowhere. The value to society of the good arable land may fluctuate on a multigenerational timescale. Free markets don't handle that well.
Price and supply stability are also of value. I like being able to buy what I want at the grocery store. I don't want to keep a chicken so that I can be sure to have eggs. There is no store where I can go buy "not-needing-to-have-a-chicken", so the demand for such is not readily evident, but I think it is high.
Even so, I think subsidies need to be reformed. I see no reason they should protect family farms rather than societal interests that the market can't handle.
And I have no sympathy for either, nor anybody else who puts the costs of their lifestyle on the public tab. I'd rather sit around all day and play guitar while living in a trendy neighborhood - should I be pitied because the government won't pay for me to indulge my preferred lifestyle? They myth that there is something uniquely noble about the farming lifestyle is the main rhetorical obstacle to reforming our farm policies and the exceptionalism it fosters is completely morally unjustified. I understand why farmers what their subsidies, but that's an explaination not an excuse.
The backlash against farmers for supporting ag subisidies should be embraced; it seems to be the only chance of actually getting enough political support to reform our ag policies and there is no shame in calling out those who seek to block reforms, whether they are part of big agribusiness or run small family ordeals, since they are the source of the problem. Decades of sustainted lobbying to preserve their special privileges at large costs in both America and abroad hasn't exactly been endearing to the rest of us and it's time for them to reap what they've sown.
Don't forget the huge subsidy unwillingly given by taxpayers to giant California plantations (which don't at all resemble the family farms of, say, Wisconsin): non-enforcement of the immigration laws.
Big California landowners constantly pull in huge numbers of completely unskilled illegal immigrants, and then don't pay them anywhere near enough to cover their health care, children's education, or law and order needs. They're just cost-shifting huge externalities onto the rest of us rather than invest in mechanization. Why? Because our politicians let them.
Njorl,
Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on your final paragraph? Do you have something in mind?
As I've said above, I think food security (price and supply stability is a big part of that) at a minimum requires that we do what is necessary to keep our domestic production capabilities high (your point about prime arable and how one can't go home again) for a "just in case" scenario and as a sound long-term plan for continued existence.
But I find that I feel a farm policy that favors the smaller and the many producers over the big and the few also flows naturally from that viewpoint. Production in the hands of the many would seem to minimize all kinds of risks that large-scale production by a few corporate interests would not. But your last paragraph disagrees and so I'm intrigued.
And I mean "intrigued" sincerely as I don't have any kind of perfect solution in mind. Obviously, you shouldn't be rewarded simply because you are a small farm. The market would still need to stay vibrant enough to keep weeding out the small guy who is not efficient enough. And I don't know how to do this as it's obvious implication is the eventual concentration in a few hands. What's the answer? Good goverment? Scary.
All I do know is that I think it is important not to spend the next 50 years losing our domestic food production capability just to satisfy some libertarians' ideas about what is "fair".
Will Allen:
Well, I've never had any trouble understanding why people like to receive subsidies. It's kinda comfortable to receive wealth that other people have created.
It's also kinda comfortable to know for sure that every misfortune suffered by somebody else is 100% deserved, no?
Comfort's a wonderful thing.
Do you want to spend $10 for a pound of pork or $15 for a pound of beef? If you do, go ahead and criticize the subsidy program, which is less than 2% of the nations budget. And by the way, this is where the school lunch program budget comes from, as well as the WIC program and food stamps too. Less than 12% of the farm bill goes to the farmer (that's 12 cents of every dollar of 2% of the nation's budget). If you don't mind paying the farmer what it really costs him to produce your food, do away with the farm bill and subsidy system; put your money where your mouth is. If people continue to crticize the farm bill and the farmers, our food will be supplied form a foreign country like China. The thought of this makes me very ill. It's easy for you to sit back in your comfortable chair on a full stomach and gripe about something you have no first-hand knowledge of.
What is at stake here is much more than food security, the spirit of small scale farming or economic transparency, efficiency and fairness... these are side effects or not even related to the core of the problem at hand. the core of the problem at hand is how agriculture is practiced. Cutting subsidize is just one of many ways to speed up this realization.
btw keatssycamore does not seem to understand that the left, center, right and also libertarians can have the same goals, eg local food security. they just do not agree how to get there. many still confuse goals and methodologies?
let us summarize our goals - we want:
my personal goal would be something not mentioned yet:
I should assume, as stated before, that we all agree on the goals. but this does not necessarily mean we do agree how to get there. if anything - the goal mentioned by myself is the only one that would be questioned?
I assume that many here do not believe that the way we practice agriculture today is inherently bad or unsustainable? I assume that many here do not believe that it is literally the worst and most important problem that we humans face here and now? Maybe not more important than education - as it is linked. But oore important than energy, more important than terrorists or war. More important than oil (although that is also related.
I believe and agree with other naturalists that the vanishing of oil reserves together with the eventual end of farm subsidies are the best occurrences that humanity could have hoped for. Every human no matter where - could hope for. As if there really was a God and divine timing?
matt
I don't get it. If subsidies are really as low - why would the price of meat suddenly raise so rapidly?
another question is also - how much tax $ do farmers get per head compared to all other industries and services provided by society?
and yet another question might be - why do subsidies exist in the first place. governments usually provide them to kick-start new industries that require large upfront investments (nuclear energy for example in the 50s). but we have been farming for thousands of years - why do we not know how to do this efficiently yet?
I note that farmers in Australia and New Zealand seem to be able to compete on the international export market just fine, with neither agricultural subsidies nor cheap foreign fruit-pickers. Food prices seem to be quite reasonable in those countries, too.
Oh, well. I guess they have competent farmers, unlike the United States of America.
The price of meat and everything else wil rise if American Consumers push our government to import food from other countries. If American's won't pay the farmer what it costs to produce their food if subsidies are gone, the government will look to foreign countries to import our food. At first, this will be cheap food, but once the American Farmer is gone, the foreign countries will up the cost of the food to hurt the American Economy.
Second, farmers do not get subsidize for livestock. However, the livestock feed is made from corn and soybeans, which do get subsidized. If livestock farmers can't afford the feed for their animals, they won't raise the livestock anymore. The subsidies indirectly impact the livestock industry by making feed ingredients more affordable.
And thirdly, subsidies are in place to keep the American Farmer on a level playing field with foreign farmers. Foreign countries heavily subsidize their farmers which enables them to produce food cheaper. If American Farmers were not subsidized as well, we would see a lot more of our food imported from countries like China.
And lastly, we do know how to farm efficiently, the problem is people want to pay the same for their food today as they did 20 years ago. When the consumer agrees to pay more for their food, like they do for their cars each year, you will not need a subsidy system in place. Until consumers decide to cough up the money, you need a subsidy system in place. FARMERS DO NOT SET THE PRICE for their product, they are TOLD how much they will receive for it. It's not like the retail industry, automobile industry, or grocery industry. Farming is the only industry that doesn't set it's own price for it's products.
Oildrilling lunatic:
I went to Australia and New Zealand 10 years ago. Australian and New Zealand Farmers were not using the technology American Farmers use. Numerous farms and ranchs in these two countries do not have running water in their homes, and some don't even have modern electrical wiring. You are not comparing apples to apples here. Plus, American Farmers and Ranchers produce more food on fewer acres.
keatssycamore does not seem to understand that the left, center, right and also libertarians can have the same goals, eg local food security. they just do not agree how to get there.
Hugo,
This is a profound statement. Sort of like how the left, center, right and libertarian all desire world peace, they just have different methodolgies to get there. By which I mean your statement is profoundly useless.
As for your goals, can't there also be a free pony provided?
Seriously, did you have any methodology at all to propose, or is your suggestion simply to end all farm subsidies? Because that's where I'm criticizing libertarians. An end to subsidies will outsource food production and libertarians want that (I make no, and made no judgments about what the left, center and right want despite your attribution of such). I think that impacts Food Security.
If you have a different methodological solution to propose, I'll see if agree with "how to get there" and we can dialogue. And if you just have a bunch of aspirational hopes/goals that you think can be solved by eliminating farm subsidies, please explain how that's going to work?
Which, btw, is really all I was asking Njorl.
it's an intertwinned Q? Hugo... For thousands of years we farmed for ourselves not as a commodity. This works because the group we are farming for is reletively small, and doesn't change much. The BIG however, is that only worked when every successive generation could go find land for itself to farm on. The land has a carrying capacity and you can't go beyond it without using some means of forcing it to produce more. Generation after generation, that doesn't work. the human race expands. The only thing that keeps it from doing so is war, or pestillence. Like the black death for example. There are many reasons for that, but an expansion of population due to good farming yields followed by sudden poor farming yields was a contributer. Some would look at that or influenza pandemic as being re-sets. But who can look dispassionately at us now if half our population were to die? Yet, when you talk sustainable, what do you mean? the earth allows for low density farming, certainly. But it seems like the high density farming that is viable economically will only work with extra oomph from fertalizers and such. To go back to the old ways, we actually have to go back. 1 person can only grow so much food by themselves, certainly not in the exponential multiplier range that we do now, unless fetilizers and such are used.
Sustainable can mean so many different things. The question is, with your meaning, what IS the actual carrying capacity of the earth, using your way of farming? If it will only carry 1 billion people that way, it means the other 5 billion will have to die in order for that to work. Or whatever frame of reference you choose.
The inconvenience that an aweful lot of people never look at, is while we could return to a simpler time, the simpler time is not now. Do we have the will to quit our jobs en masse and head back to the land? Is there even enough arable land to support that? There is an aweful lot of the US that isn't actually farmable... there isn't enough water, and the soil is almost worthless for that reason. If the people in those areas need to move to someplace with more land to farm where will that be?
Lets say Los angeles metro. While there are very fertile parts of Cali. much of it is desert. Does the central valley have enough land and space for everyone in LA to move there?
The question isn't clear cut, and the law of unintended consequence is a trump card. Think corn production. We barely talk ethanol in the US, and corn as a food source, has price jumps. That benefits some farmers, but the consumer takes it in the shorts. And that has barely even BEGUN. What would it be like if everyone already had flex fuel cars? A year ago it seemed like a great idea, and now? Maybe not as good. The inertia of the idea has taken over though, and now everyone is rushing to produce corn if their land will grow it...
Farming isn't as clear cut as policy people want it to be. There are just too many independent variables. We have to start somewhere with the subsidy thing, but nobody should act like it isn't going to hurt. A Lot.
Thank you D for reminding people why we farmed 50 years ago and how that has changed today. You obviously have been around a farm at one point in your life to understand this. Most people who are not connected to farming through their past can not comprehend how a farm works today. They think if they see a modern livestock barn on a farm it means that is a factory farm, not a family farm. Many family farms are building new livestock buildings to improve the health and quality of life for their animals. But city dwellers only know what they read on the internet or in newspapers such as the NY Times. They never take the time to reach out to a farmer and find out the facts. There are so many people in our country today who need to make a visit to a real farm, where the family works and lives 100% of the time, not a hobby farm that is only visited on the weekends. Thanks again D for breathing some common sense into this issue.
Matt
cheers mate. I have nothing more to add?
for a second I assumed you are American and living in the present. But know I know that you are posting from the USSR? It's like in this bad movie where the father who lives in the past can communicate with his son via a radio...
no.. I kid.. really, I kid.
your comment triggers more questions. we have reached a stage where we do no longer secure our money with gold but rather foreign equity etc. in the case of food - what would prevent us from growing food ourselves within the US again - in case WWIII breaks out?
in other words - what prevents from practicing free market economics instead of plan economics in the case of agriculture - like with other mission-critical industries such as finance, IT, telecoms, energy, etc.
and what is wrong with market transparency regarding livestock? do Americans not suffer enough from saturated fats, heart diseases, cancer and obesity that we have to subsidize this too? why should people who do not consume unhealthy products pay via health care taxes for those who do?
If meat and milk uses 5-10 times more land and is responsible for that much more CO2, soil erosion, species loss, water depletion, etc. why should it not cost more for those who use up those resources?
and btw - do you think that current agricultural practices are sustainable and why?
Hugo,
In other words - what prevents from practicing free market economics instead of plan economics in the case of agriculture - like with other mission-critical industries such as finance, IT, telecoms, energy.
I'm guessing the response will be you don't eat finance, IT, telecoms, energy.
We do no longer secure our money with gold but rather foreign equity etc. in the case of food - what would prevent us from growing food ourselves within the US again - in case WWIII breaks out?
Ahh, to be cruxified on the cross of gold! So funny that you use an example of the farmer getting screwed by big business interests to justify...screwing the farmer again!
"They tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. We reply that our great cities rest upon our broad and great prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city of the country."
So at least to that extent WJB agrees with you. Score one for Hugo and abandoning "plan agriculture". After all, grass will grow in the streets after WWIII.
Hugo,
I somehow completely misread part of something you wrote above. I'm sorry. Basically, due to my lack of reading comprehension skills, I would ask that you ignore all of this:
We do no longer secure our money with gold but rather foreign equity etc. in the case of food - what would prevent us from growing food ourselves within the US again - in case WWIII breaks out?
Ahh, to be cruxified on the cross of gold! So funny that you use an example of the farmer getting screwed by big business interests to justify...screwing the farmer again!
Sorry about that Hugo. Carry on while I slink off...
D
Thank you for stating your side so beautifully and honestly. I think my emotions are aligned with yours as we both seem to star into an abyss?
Personally – I do not believe that “big” is bad. It always depends on how it is applied. But as the CEO of Wholefoods, John Mackey (a vegan), rightly argues during an open lecture with Michal Pollan at UC Berkeley – big can be practiced in a sustainable manner.
Equally – small family farms can practice ecologically unsustainable agriculture. If we had many small family farms doing that it could be worse than big players moving towards more sustainability?
However – what is sustainability? Yes – I do have the ecological footprint at mind and heart. We know that we could only serve 3 billion comfortably on livestock rich Western diets but 10 billion on a vegetarian diet. The circle of irony is that vegetarian agriculture is cheap and economical and therefore allows populations to grow (India, China) but as these regions grow richer and hence slow population growth – they also start adopting livestock agriculture which offsets the positive population slow down. But there is more to it?
You imply that we cannot sustain the world population with food based on "old" practices? First of all why? And how "old" were you thinking? 50, 100, 1000 years ago.. how did stuff grow before humans started agriculture? why is this not possible anymore?
You further imply that there is a connection between economics and high density farming? I do believe so too but I am not sure if it is for the same reasons and with the same implications? Eg Why does it seem that only fertilizers and pesticides can produce economical high density results? Is this type sustainable – and if not – why do we even bring it up? If something is not ecologically sustainable it usually means that our airplane is somehow not aligned with the laws of gravity and aerodynamics?
Corrupting natural laws of sustainability can be practiced when the population is small. But as it starts to increase exponentially and doubles from 1,5 to 3 and then 6 billion in only decades – Icarus is approaching the ground faster than even before.
Is this your abyss? Do you believe that with "old" agricultural practice we could not feed the many people on the planet but at the same time we are somehow borrowing from the future with current high density farming and fertilizer use? That something has to bend? We know that soil erosion is wide spread and a bigger problem than farmers and hence the media care to admit?
Thank you for an interesting discussion. Please elaborate a bit more on these open issues. the connection between current high density farming (fertilizer, pesticides, etc) and sustainability, and economics. why can farming of the past not serve current populations?
Keatssycamore is concerned about "food security" and says
The ag subsidies have killed more family farms then anything else..
They have led to the very brittle, insecure, environmentally destructive monoculture production of corn, wheat, and cotton.
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If you want to help the "family farmer" and improve food security kill the ag subsidies ASAP.
Careyfarm
I do not believe anyone here wanted to hurt your feeling by implying that a farmer’s work is not honorable in intend! If anything – the implication is that 100% big farmers get subsidies but only ¼ of all family farmers.
I do not doubt that you work and live 100% for the farm. Isn’t this almost a curse? What was the price for eating off the Tree of Knowledge?
Can you imagine a world where you can make the same living with only a fraction of the current work – while freeing the environment from more destruction and pollution and providing healthier foods for humans? No tilling, no fertilizer, no pesticides? Or is agriculture always hard work and will always require subsidies as it is never profitable despite all the increases in technology? Isn’t there something wrong? Or why do you think that agriculture requires subsidies?
And do you think that current high-yield agricultural practices are sustainable? Does your family farm have a sustainable footprint? Do you not experience soil erosion and water pollution increases over the years? Thanks for your insights!
brooksfoe says
Creating an export market for third world farmers is not the most important thing. Creating an economic situation that will support a functional ag sector in those countries so they can feed their population is the important thing.
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The high US subsidies for cotton production are about to kill cotton farming in Africa. Which has highly negative impact on the economy and standard of living in those countries
D says
It is not an issue of undercutting prices, even the largest corn growers are price takers. The problem is oversupply which depresses the prices and gives the high volume producers an advantage in a low margin market..
Subsidies guarantee a price, so everyone plants subsidized crops which cause a supply glut and downward pressure on prices.
Njorl in blockquotes
Even the best farmland, when prices for ag products is good, is almost never more economically valuable then developed land..
True enough but the (prime farmland) (just outside the big city) set is a trivial amount of land.
MattXIV says
If the farm programs were just supported by the farmers they probably would have been killed years ago..
The farm aid phenom and the truckloads of tug at the heart string stories produced by the news media whenever ag subsidies are mentioned have contributed mightily to the continued existence of the ag subsidies.
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The new media have not done a good job of reporting on farm subsidies and the damage they cause to farmers and consumers.
Matt says
Better and more efficient to pay the farmer directly then running all that taxpayer money through the ag department. Plus people would appreciate the true cost of food instead of having it hidden in their tax bill the way it is now..
China is stretched providing their own population. As their standard of living increases so will their populations demand for better quality food. The chance of them importing anything but a few niche ag commodities to the US is not likely to happen.
Um, brownstones are pretty. Farms are gorgeous. There's no chance that I personally will ever wind up owning either, but I derive a large benefit from the preservation of the West Village, Georgetown, or Park Slope as gorgeous neighborhoods, and from the preservation of a New England countryside full of red barns, cornfields and Jerseys. Not only that: the property values of tons of house owners in New England depend on the preservation of those farms. If the countryside in a 5-mile radius of Sharon, CT gets eaten up by subdivisions or McMansions, property values in Sharon will drop dramatically.
The discussion about farm subsidies is actually three discussions. One is about food security. This seems slightly wacky to me, but some people actually consider it important. Another is about preserving a "way of life". A third is about cultivating and shaping the American landscape, and it fits in with Smart Growth ideas about how to create successful regions. The problem with American farm subsidies is that they don't meet any of these rationales very well, and so the costs they impose on consumers and on poor third-world farmers can't be justified. But talking about farm subsidies without even employing the vocabulary of those issues misses the point.
brooksfoe
I think a very important, forth, discussion is sustainability. Personally - I would venture as far as claiming that it is the single most important challenge we face. Aesthetics, estate prices and even "way of life" are only side-effects and symptoms of sustainability. Obviously - so is food security.
The chance of them importing anything but a few niche ag commodities to the US is not likely to happen.
Actually, China exports vast quantities of farmed fish and shrimp to the US every year. China, Vietnam and a few other countries had wiped out the US shrimp fishing industry until the Commerce Dept. imposed (ludicrous) anti-dumping penalties 3 years ago. With intensive rather than extensive agricultural products, China can scale up to export to the US. The problem for China is in areas like corn, wheat, rice and soybeans, where cultivation depends on having a lot of arable land, and their arable land is now getting chewed up by urban development.
brooksfoe
The problem for China is in areas like corn, wheat, rice and soybeans, where cultivation depends on having a lot of arable land, and their arable land is now getting chewed up by urban development.
Their arable land is literally getting chewed up... by livestock that consumes these crops. much more so than by urban development.
Here a quote from the life-saving book The Future of Life, The Bottleneck by Harvard's E O Wilson:
brooksfoe, in case you weren't kidding about 'food security', see:
"This year’s world grain harvest is projected to fall short of consumption by 61 million tons, marking the sixth time in the last seven years that production has failed to satisfy demand. As a result of these shortfalls, world carryover stocks at the end of this crop year are projected to drop to 57 days of consumption, the shortest buffer since the 56-day-low in 1972 that triggered a doubling of grain prices."
http://www.energybulletin.net/17261.html
Oh my God, Mark. what's going on?
We are subsidizing our farmers, use the best genetically modified grains, the best chemical fertilizers, the best pesticides and work 100% of the time and we cannot feed America?
Is this a crisis? What shall we do?
The problem with current stocks is related to the overuse of corn for ethanol production, due to extreme and highly distortive subsidy. Thank you Congress.
so, Hugo, i read the sustainability site you posted on, but I didn't see numbers anywhere. Are you familiar with them? Can you point to them?
The thing about your point on vegetatarianism, and sustainability, is that half the worlds population lives in China and India, and iirc both are strongly veg. places. The probelem is more that much of the earths population growth is in india, because they are producing roughly 3 kids per, and on the 1.12B population scale that is a large production even if Niger is producing 7 kids per... their pop is less... 13mil. Not that it's not alot. China had the fierce one child law, but that is loosening, related to it's causing a population imbalance, but their pop is still expanding.
Regardless of what is imagined as veg policies, those 2 countries account for so much movement. The US is just shy of replacement now, but it is estimated that we would be far lower if it wasn't for immigration.
What we do or don't do in the US will not affect those 2 countries much, but globally they are affecting much. The sustainability group you linked to, doesn't seem to have a plan for the developing world, and percentage and size wise they are driving change.
On to the question of going back to older agriculture... first there is population change. from 1900 at 76m to 1950 at 151m to 2000 290m we were doubling every 50 years, but that seems to be over, and we arent expected to double again till 2150 or so... but still. 100 years ago we are a very agrarian place with roughly 60% of people living outside cities. They would have been farmers or support services for farmer, I would expect, but I don't have exact figures. The USDA indicates in 2002 there were roughly 2.9 million farmers on 2.2 million farms... and interestingly the USDA considers 34,000 of those farms to be Non-family: "1Farms organized as nonfamily corporations or cooperatives, as well as farms operated by hired managers."
The reason that is so interesting is those commercial farms produce 50% of sales for all farms. USDA starter page
If my fingers and toes are right, that means that less than 1% of our population are farmers.
And they are producing most food for everyone else. One way they do that is by getting the highest yield per acre, using insecticide, and fertilizer on high yield crops. The other way that even most family farmers use is mechanization.
You take away the pesticide, and the fertilizer, and what is your yield? 1/4, an 1/8? What would happen if food production in the US fell by 75%?
This sort of maximization is what allowed people to not be farmers. It's what allowed 1% to feed 99% But you have to keep in mind, that the actual land they are using hasn't increased. what little extra that has been moved onto, has been offset by expanding suburbs. Even thought that give and take is small. Since the end of the dustbowl there has been little change in HOW MUCH land is being farmed. The change has been in yield.
This is why I say no matter how much I would like to teach Megan how to drive a tractor, it's impractical to think in those terms.
There simply isn't enough land to go back to the old ways, even with mechanization. We need to move foreward with sustainability, we can't turn back, without massively altering the number of people who live here. Also? There isn't enough WATER to waste on lower yields. We can't really afford to lose 75% of a crop, that has been watered. Much of the expansion, small as it is, in farming in the last 100 years is based on irrigation, either flowing water or center-pivot sprinkler. There are farms much farther west into areas that are semi-arid that cannot exist without pumping water, so we cannot afford to waster the water. The potential that we will uses up all the irreplacable aquifer water in the future is a WHOLE other kettle of fish.
As a side note? The taking of farmland and making it in to suburbs? This shouldn't be underestimated. If crops are grown close to an urban area, you have to use far, far less resources to get them to market. Cities are located where they are because they were close to farm concentrations and transportation, which means indeed they are over-running the best land. However you can't just plunk a city anywhere. The reason the west has miles of no population is because there are areas where there simply isn't any water to sustain a population, even if you had the money to move one there.
Also, Hugo, read that whole bullitin Mark linked, there is a weath of GLOBAL info in there. Those are global figures. The US actually exports much grain to the rest of the world, because their lands may be entirely unsuited to growing it while ours are uniquly suited...
I went to Australia and New Zealand 10 years ago. Australian and New Zealand Farmers were not using the technology American Farmers use. Numerous farms and ranchs in these two countries do not have running water in their homes, and some don't even have modern electrical wiring. You are not comparing apples to apples here. Plus, American Farmers and Ranchers produce more food on fewer acres.
Huh? What farms and ranches? I grew up in NZ, and twenty years ago Gran and Grandad's farmhouse was amply connected to electricity and running water.
I've never seen a farm in my lifetime in Australia or NZ that lacked electricity or running water.
D
Why do I feel as if somebody has just explained to me why a small number of people can feed a larger number while not answering my core questions? Have you just done that? That is very nice of you but was never part of the discussion? Sorry for the wasted effort? You finish off the post with:
When I talk about ecological sustainability.. of course I talk globally and not locally. Eg I have posted two analysis that state that Asia has a problem given its increase of meat and milk production. The US could in theory sustain many more people than live in the US - were it not for livestock which exceed the sustainability.
Regarding the bulletin - you don't think I have access to numbers and sources? Do I not seem to be "into it"? But let's look at the bulleting by Mark. The first 2 most recent posts, for example, read:
1. Michale Pollen:
(He is right - although I do not like him personally. I would rather vote for Hillary Clinton as she has more backbone than him.. If he were to hear a brilliant logical notion - he would not publicly agree with it unless 50% of all people supported it.. At least Hillary would have the confidence that she could convince a missing 1% at 49%..)2. Cornell University (as Matt has already told us before I could explain it myself above):
(PS: Like all studies conducted by omnivores, eg Pollan, this study, like Pollan, has to stress that we could somehow cope with a minor bit of meat (say once every two weeks).. why they stress this and not the fact that right now humans eat more animals products than cats and wolves in the wild is not clear.. or better all too clear ;-)
But i digress and distract...
My simple question to everyone here, that has not been answered yet at all is:
Are modern agricultural practices ecologically sustainable or not?
Isn't that an interesting or even important question to answer? Does nobody here care? What if agriculture turned out to be worse than all the oil, all the cars all the factories on the planet? Hello? D claims that if we went back to the old days - output would drop by magic 75%? Why? What if we do not go back? Can the earth handle petroleum fertilizer and chemical pesticides for ever? What happens to the soil, what happens to water (especially when used for livestock), what happens to species, what happens to biodiversity?
Unless you are suicidal... ANYBODY??????
(PS: this is an ecological question and not an economic or farmer question. ie answers like: outpup would drop without modern techniques is NOT part of the question. the question is about ecological long term sustainability. In other words - I do not care if people might want to use petrol in 200 years when we know that it will be gone in a few decades)
sorry Hugo, hadn't checked back. I was asking the questions honestly. In the universe of facts and figures, just finding them is hard, that's why I asked where yours were. Not as an indication that you didn't have any.
I guess I've lost the thread on exactly where we were going with this from a global standpoint. So two things come to mind, and please know that I am not arguing that this is a black and white question.
One is in answer to your sustainability question:
No you can't go on forever like this.
You also can't sanp your fingers and make a course correction tomorrow, unless you are divine or at least a god-like alien. which feeds in to 2...
I poked around the FAO site you linked to and one of the things that was striking is the way some counrties produce and export grains, and others can only sustain their people by importing.
This is why I was reacting to your comment about
"we cannot feed America?" by mentionig that Marks link was global because I thought you had misread. The US exports over half it grain production, we are having no problem feeding ourselves. We feed much of the world. Canada exports a stunning amount of grain too, esp. based on their population size...
The catch is obviously what you said about sustainability. We can't go on at this level forever, but what does that mean? We can cut our production in half and still be fine. The magic 75% that you mentioned is a WAG, I have no clue how much crop yield would go down if we suddenly stopped using fertilizer and pesticides, I just know it would go down.
The question is, what is China, or Ethiopia, or Turkey going to do if we suddenly don't export grains? If suddenly everyone who exports grains stops? What are they going to eat? Will they all starve to death? Will they start a war?
One of the other sites that is linked to from FAO indicates that rice production in the far east isn't accelerating anymore while their populations still are. Comparatively speaking rice is much more labor intensive than wheat, but also requires an astounding amount of water. seems to me that means that rice is no more sustainable than wheat for a different reason.
To me, the bottom line in all of this isn't asking about environmentalism. It's about how you get there. Human instinctually self preserve. To the good, and the bad. Not recognizing the earth as a closed loop is a problem in our thinking, and some people call it suicial. To a person in China, or the Sudan, etc, what primarily concerns them, is eating. today.
I agree with you that sustainability is the question. Population can't grow forever, GDP can't grow forever, and neither can stock in google. The question always comes back to, how do you deal with that?
Sure, if we were vegetarians, our plant food yields wouldn't have to be as high, because we wouldn't be wasting any of it taking it through other animals. Are you planning on outlawing meat consumption to get there? Since we already export half our grain, are we going to tell everyone who eats it to go hang? One of the pages linked to complains how high wheat prices have become... That is with us in our current way of making it. If the prices skyrocket because of production changes, where does that leave countries that import it heavily?
I don't think we need somebody to say it's unsustainable, as much as we need someone to say this is unsustainable in x timeframe, and here is the plan on how we can fix that. And then you have to sell that plan worldwide, and then they have to sell it locally, and then you have to sell it to actual farmers. Just telling a 55year old farmer [the average farmer age in the US] that his farming practices aren't sustainable forever doesn't do much. Doing something like selling him on no-till farming [done some years ago] because it saves him time and money, as well as the environment, they will get behind you on that.
You say it is an ecological question and not an economic or farmer question. This is true in thinking but not practice. Without the economy and the human beings working, they will not concern themselves with the ecology. People in a food riot will kill their own relatives for food. People without food starve to death. When arguing about sustainability, we can't really say "well if there were 2 billion people on earth"
Are you willing to MAKE 2 billion people on earth? There are 6B so we have to start from there. People live and work in cities, and they consume a certain amount, so we have to start from there. One of the articles you linked to: Bottleneck - Future of life about 6 paragraphs in talks about how families moving in to cities, and women choosing to have smaller families is a positive thing for overall population reduction. The catch is, if you live in a city, someone else must raise your food for you. Moving people away from raising their own food requires higher yields, higher yields require... pesticides and fertilizers [and other stuff].
Somewhere in there is a sustainability point, but I don't know what it is. Once you figure out what it is, how do you enforce it?
I hope you see what I am saying on this, because it works as a conversation, and I'd like to keep it that way...
D
I truly believe that your last post is one of the most precious that I have read in a long time. People on here have told me that I sound optimistic about solar energy. Well, I know that I am pessimistic about agriculture – the most overlooked global problem imo – and for the very same reasons that you have listed above and more. Here a long reply..
..jumping to the conclusions…
I do not believe that certain mitigation measures have to be enforced by draconian force. I believe that once the public realized the magnitude of the problem at hand – they will act democratically as in the case of CO2.
It is a question of asymmetrical information, or better, asymmetrical prioritization as a result.
Just like with global climate change – the ecological footprint will hit us all economically and socially unless we change our perceptions and thinking soon enough, and return to the Garden of Eden, metaphorically speaking.
D, I’d be ignorant to think that drastic changes can happen over night (unless it is nature hitting us). At this point I am more concerned about the fact that there is not awareness regarding the issues we discuss in the general population and politics at all. I mean – despite the recent report on emissions by livestock – the FAO keeps its risk assessment hidden behind too many chapters in its reports and web sites. The fact that we have already used up fish stocks is more publicized? When this insanely great problem is being discussed it is behind closed doors and not publicly. Journalists generally don’t find this subject sexy because they know that the general public, the consumer, has lost his/her connection to nature completely and simply doesn’t care about such boring a subject? There are probably more people out there who want to preserve nature in order to have beautiful holiday resorts (hey, whatever wakes you up)?I agree with you that telling an old farmer chap that what he has been doing all his life is rubbish is not in the best interest of Machiavellian honor. But telling the public and the policy makers is something else? I fear that there must be some public pressure to make farmers consider no-till farming and less livestock as you have so very rightly suggested?
I would even go one step further, or shall I say one straw? The most libertarian approach to farming that I have ever heard of has been practiced by a Japanese farmer, Fukuoka Suzuki, for over 50 years now (the chap is 94 or older now and still at it).
Fukuoka’s revolutionary farming method is rightly called Natural Farming and is as much aligned with natural laws as possible. His simple for laws are:
No tilling
No fertilizer
No pesticides
No weeding!
He achieves almost the same results as the highest yielding chemical approaches at only a fraction of the labor.
Of course – if we continue to eat meat and milk products in high quantities – any effort will be futile and literally half-hearted.
Even if you consider my suggestions as too radical (or do not trust the Creation and God enough?) – one thing is certain – subsidizing current agricultural methods is not in anybody’s interest.
Theory or not, in this case.. a child does need a mother first?
cont.
...
This is exactly we have to reduce our intake pf animal products - unless we are willing to kill a few billion people in order to keep up a taste..? If we were only 2 billion we could continue with current consumption of meat/milk and our ignorant agriculture modus operanti - but we are 6 billion and growing. Time for change and positive, real improvements because we can't really say "well if there were 2 billion people on earth"
My premise is that the most sustainable economical approaches will turn out to be the most profitable, the most healthy for the human body, spirit and condition. In the case of farming, the most sustainable approach, Natural Farming, will yield the highest yields, the best economics and the healthiest and tastiest foods. If that does not hold true – we have more to face than black Fridays?
As argued before, I do not believe that people have to grow their own food. I do not believe that big is bad. One can be a big agricultural entrepreneur and practice sustainable agriculture in theory. Especially when the economics are right. You will enjoy the talk between the WholeFoods CEO and Michael Pollen that I have linked to above.
In other words – people moving into cities is not as bad. They can be provided by a few big yet sustainable farmers or many small ones. Cities are more energy efficient than suburbia but with the right green energies in place, insulation and sustainable agriculture (no livestock) - I truly believe that your ideal home location can remain a life-style choice. I.e. live where you want as long as you drive an electric SUV and use solar power – it is possible and economical. But what we cannot do – is continue to eat meat and dairy at such high quantities (unless of course we are willing to kill a few billion human in order to allow for that taste to continue..).
The farmers know it – but since they work 100% of the time – they do not have time to think about alternatives. They are just worried because they cannot imagine a way out and somehow want to milk the cow for the sake of their family as long as possible. The consumers know it unconsciously but pleasure and habit (not to mention addiction) is at stake and that is worse than being taxed?
We have the solutions:
less food
mostly plants
natural farming
Not over night as the soil couldn’t even adapt to changes that fast. But within a time frame of decades there must be a fading out of unnatural corruption of nature. Everybody on the planet would be better off in every possible aspect! Even Asia could feed its population locally (provided they stop consuming animal products again). The faster we move the cheaper it would be – there is far less uncertainty when it comes to the unsustainability of modern farming methods than with climate change. But who wants to hear it?
Hugo & D
to your points about sustainability, see:
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=C4+Switchgrass
&
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Hemp+for+agriculture
the easy points being: these plants are hardy & drought resistant, and provide much more cellulose, at the minimum, per acre than any tree farm.
The crops that you have linked to are very efficient plants and we already grow them in large quantities. What are you trying to communicate?
The question here is "how do you grow" crop and what do you use it for (feed?). The question is not "what kind of crop" per se. It is worthwhile to mention that fruits and vegetables have a smaller footprint than grains.. but also here the question is: are modern industrial agricultural practices for growing fruits and vegetables sustainable (and healthy)? They are not as identified above?
Do you use tilling, do you use (petrol) fertilizer, (chemical) pesticides, do you practice weeding?
The question is not - what industry are you in (grains, fruits, vegetables, trees).. but "how" do you grow. Do you follow laws of ecology or do you pretend that nature must be micromanaged and apply plan-economics and misleading factory terminology or even worse, factory thinking?
In other words - growing plants which use C4 metabolism like sugarcane, maize, hemp, sorghum, finger millet, amaranth, and switchgrass can have positive effects - but how do you grow them is the key question regarding sustainability?
Bear in mind that forestry is one of the smaller problems compared to food production. Most of the rain forest and species have disappeared for burgers, pasture and feed - not for furniture or housing. But also with tree agriculture - the same fundamental corruption of nature is currently practiced. Henry Thoreau has put it as no other English language writer:
Hugo,
with this: "Do you use tilling, do you use (petrol) fertilizer, (chemical) pesticides, do you practice weeding?"
The crops I alluded to need little, if any, of the above, to be prolific.
To your point re: HDT, it was, quite unknowable, one of the reasons I referred to "Tree Farms".
Another being that I believe it to be the sector of our AgEco that can be more easily converted to 'sustainable' practices. Our food growing/consumption habits, I'd posit, will take a longer term to harmonize.
MEH
Both D and myself agreed that changes will take decades. Not only because humans need time to adjust their thinking and operations but also because the soil needs time to adjust after it has been freed. (There is an interesting analogy to tyrannies being freed and the adjustment period needed until free market institutions and thinking can grow roots. There is a always an anarchic transition period involved during which things look worse than they had been before under tyranny.)
But I agree with Republican Representative Paul D. Ryan who told the New York Times that “When farm prosperity is as good as it is right now, this is the time to reform. If we can’t reform these farm programs at this moment in our history, we will never be able to do it.”
It should be noted that not only are farmers as rich as ever but also consumers. If we can't reform at this moment in history, we will either never be able to do it or it will cost much much more?
The first easy step, as recently argued on The Economist blog, is: "rather than increasing taxes on things we want and to subsidise things we don't want, we may wish to tax things we don't want, like carbon or congestion or tobacco use, to subsidise things we do want, like high savings rates or healthy children."
I am sure all will agree. The simple, obvious first step is to stop subsidizing agriculture of either unsustainable agricultural methods (industrial agriculture or livestock agriculture) or unsustainable unhealthy foods (saturated fats via meat and milk).
We spend 5 times more tax money on saturated fats subsidies for example than on fruits and vegetables (which are not only healthier but also far more sustainable). We do not use the healthy sweetener fructose but rather use sugarcanes and corn syrup (both no real fruit sugars but sucrose) or even worse - chemical sweeteners. The USDA pushes its excess fat and butter depots into the school lunch program which makes our children even more obese and diabetic. And I do not have to mention the biggest risk of soil erosion, food insecurity, global instability and of course, ecological destruction of our only income revenue, Mother Nature.
Even if one did not want to cut the many billions in spending - a relocation towards organic and sustainable methods is a must! Otherwise we only embarrass ourselves when introducing a carbon tax or cap and trade...
Everybody, Republican and Democrat, should write their representatives and inform them about this vital first step. This challenge is more than a partisan issue - it affects everybody equally and demands free market transparency now. Maybe we do not need more ecological understand but rather more economical intuition? Again - read my clicks:
Tax what is bad and subsidize what is good - not the other way around!
But methinks the public knows this more or less and it really comes down to a naturalistic, an ecological vacuum in our souls. The public just doesn't know that modern agriculture is not only bad but the worst!
MEH
Both D and myself agreed that changes will take decades. Not only because humans need time to adjust their thinking and operations but also because the soil needs time to adjust after it has been freed. (There is an interesting analogy to tyrannies being freed and the adjustment period needed until free market institutions and thinking can grow roots. There is a always an anarchic transition period involved during which things look worse than they had been before under tyranny.)
But I agree with Republican Representative Paul D. Ryan who told the New York Times that "When farm prosperity is as good as it is right now, this is the time to reform. If we can’t reform these farm programs at this moment in our history, we will never be able to do it."
It should be noted that not only are farmers as rich as ever but also consumers. If we can't reform at this moment in history, we will either never be able to do it or it will cost much much more?
The first easy step, as recently argued on The Economist blog, is: "rather than increasing taxes on things we want and to subsidise things we don't want, we may wish to tax things we don't want, like carbon or congestion or tobacco use, to subsidise things we do want, like high savings rates or healthy children."
I am sure all will agree. The simple, obvious first step is to stop subsidizing agriculture of either unsustainable agricultural methods (industrial agriculture or livestock agriculture) or unsustainable unhealthy foods (saturated fats via meat and milk).
We spend 5 times more tax money on saturated fats subsidies for example than on fruits and vegetables (which are not only healthier but also far more sustainable). We do not use the healthy sweetener fructose but rather use sugarcanes and corn syrup (both no real fruit sugars but sucrose) or even worse - chemical sweeteners. The USDA pushes its excess fat and butter depots into the school lunch program which makes our children even more obese and diabetic. And I do not have to mention the biggest risk of soil erosion, food insecurity, global instability and of course, ecological destruction of our only income revenue, Mother Nature.
Even if one did not want to cut the many billions in spending - a relocation towards organic and sustainable methods is a must! Otherwise we only embarrass ourselves when introducing a carbon tax or cap and trade...
Everybody, Republican and Democrat, should write their representatives and inform them about this vital first step. This challenge is more than a partisan issue - it affects everybody equally and demands free market transparency now. Maybe we do not need more ecological understand but rather more economical intuition? Again - read my clicks:
Tax what is bad and subsidize what is good - not the other way around!
But methinks the public knows this more or less and it really comes down to a naturalistic, an ecological vacuum in our souls. The public just doesn't know that modern agriculture is not only bad but the worst!
MEH
Both D and myself agreed that changes will take decades. Not only because humans need time to adjust their thinking and operations but also because the soil needs time to adjust after it has been freed. (There is an interesting analogy to tyrannies being freed and the adjustment period needed until free market institutions and thinking can grow roots. There is a always an anarchic transition period involved during which things look worse than they had been before under tyranny.)
But I agree with Republican Representative Paul D. Ryan who told the New York Times that:
"When farm prosperity is as good as it is right now, this is the time to reform. If we can’t reform these farm programs at this moment in our history, we will never be able to do it."
It should be noted that not only are farmers as rich as ever but also consumers. If we can't reform at this moment in history, we will either never be able to do it or it will cost much much more?
The first easy step, as recently argued on The Economist blog, is: "rather than increasing taxes on things we want and to subsidise things we don't want, we may wish to tax things we don't want, like carbon or congestion or tobacco use, to subsidise things we do want, like high savings rates or healthy children."
I am sure all will agree. The simple, obvious first step is to stop subsidizing agriculture of either unsustainable agricultural methods (industrial agriculture or livestock agriculture) or unsustainable unhealthy foods (saturated fats via meat and milk).
... continued (I have to break up my posts or I am being blocked):
We spend 5 times more tax money on saturated fats subsidies for example than on fruits and vegetables (which are not only healthier but also far more sustainable). We do not use the healthy sweetener fructose but rather use sugarcanes and corn syrup (both no real fruit sugars but sucrose) or even worse - chemical sweeteners. The USDA pushes its excess fat and butter depots into the school lunch program which makes our children even more obese and diabetic. And I do not have to mention the biggest risk of soil erosion, food insecurity, global instability and of course, ecological destruction of our only life-support system, Mother Nature.
Even if one did not want to cut the many billions in spending - a relocation towards organic and sustainable methods is a must! Otherwise we only embarrass ourselves when introducing a carbon tax or cap and trade...
Everybody, Republican and Democrat, should write their representatives and inform them about this vital first step. This challenge is more than a partisan issue - it affects everybody equally and demands free market transparency now. Maybe we do not need more ecological understand but rather more economical intuition? Again - read my clicks:
Tax what is bad and subsidize what is good - not the other way around!
But methinks the public knows this more or less and it really comes down to a naturalistic, an ecological vacuum in our souls. The public just doesn't know that modern agriculture is not only bad but the worst!
Hugo,
"The public just doesn't know that modern agriculture is not only bad but the worst!"
This is the idea that goes to the heart of the matter.
Change this, let the buyer understand the costs of the chain(s) of demand they are pulling. Economics will will out. The tax schema is unnecessary and will prove, again, to produce unintended consequences. It is understanding, not punitive financial measures that will allow the long-standing changes you seek.
matt - re: "Do you want to spend $10 for a pound of pork or $15 for a pound of beef? If you do, go ahead and criticize the subsidy program"
Farm price supports increase the price consumers pay for food.
Hugo Pottisch - Re:
"I would even go one step further, or shall I say one straw? The most libertarian approach to farming that I have ever heard of has been practiced by a Japanese farmer, Fukuoka Suzuki, for over 50 years now (the chap is 94 or older now and still at it).
Fukuoka’s revolutionary farming method is rightly called Natural Farming and is as much aligned with natural laws as possible. "
Its only libertarian if its 100% voluntary.
Re:
"No tilling
No fertilizer
No pesticides
No weeding!"
Well than your going to have to 1 - Allow for a lot more wilderness and semi-wilderness to be converted to farm land, 2 - Have many more people start farming and lose the goods and services they would have otherwise produced, and 3 - Accept higher food prices, and 4 - Have a lower variety of types of food be available to most people.
That doesn't exactly sound like a good idea to me, and since it would only happen in response to a large application of government force, its hardly libertarian.