

The Illogic of Farm Subsidies, and Other Agricultural Truths - robg
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/the-illogic-of-farm-subsidies-and-other-agricultural-truths/?hp

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steveplace
The only decent argument I have heard for U.S. farm subsidies is national
security. If we were to allow most of our food supply to be imported, then it
would be a weakness for the country in a wartime scenario.

I also think this is BS and this isn't the Cold War anymore, but it is the
only _reasonable_ argument I've found.

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cconstantine
The way modern farming works, it's not very easy/quick to rapidly expand
farming into non-farming lands. Farming takes expertise, infrastructure,
equipment, labor, and a fair amount of biological systems to work together.
The idea of the dumb hick farmer is popular, but not entirely accurate.

War isn't the only reason it's bad to get most of our food supply from other
countries, though it is a pretty good one and it can be hard to tell in
advance when war is going to break out.

Food is the foundation of any population of people. Without it, even more so
than oil, people start dying. What farm subsidies do is keep farming
profitable enough so that there is a surplus of food every year. If for some
reason yields are low we simply have a smaller surplus instead of being
_required_ to look elsewhere for food.

I can't cite my sources, but I've heard a compelling argument that most/all
great empire collapses happen during times of drought or famine. This isn't to
say that drought or famine are sufficient or even required for a collapse, but
it sure helps.

Also, all it can take is one bad year (without subsidies) for an independent
farmer to go under. Farming is very expensive. The equipment costs hundreds of
thousands of dollars, and property taxes on 100k+ acres of land is a lot of
money.

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Prrometheus
The way modern farming works is that huge corporate farms open up lobbying
offices on K street, which they use to get politicians to increase their
subsidies year after year until the payments are larger than any logical
purpose could justify. When the production subsidies get too large and
environmentalists start to complain about all the marginal land that is being
converted to farm land, the farming industry gets the government to pay them
to leave acres alone as well.

Fly over a desert state and you will see occasional large patches of green.
Those patches of green are farms that are phenomenally expensive and resource
intensive to produce, but the subsidies make it worthwhile. Some of the fallow
land you see is also owned by the farms and they are being paid by the
government to leave it alone.

Whether agricultural giants are being paid to farm or not farm, taxpayers foot
the bill, of course. To keep them from getting upset, politicians from farm
states blow patriotic smoke about how important farms are for a nation.

>Also, all it can take is one bad year (without subsidies) for an independent
farmer to go under.

In the old days, this is what crop insurance and futures contracts were for.
Crop markets were the original source of many financial innovations that were
meant to lessen the risk of participating in a volatile industry. Now I
suppose that it is the government's job to guarantee people's livelihoods.

Software startups are a very volatile industry as well. Should the government
start subsidizing them to keep them from going under? Perhaps it could start
with 10 cents per year per line of code written. The first bill will cost $50
billion/year and most of the subsidy will go to Microsoft. After all, we can't
allow our software industry to go overseas in case war breaks out. We need
American programmers available to write guidance programs for our satellites,
unmanned drones, and missiles.

Now I just need to switch my startup from Ruby to something more verbose to
rake in those LOC subsidies.

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dejb
I don't think the argument is that the current system of subsidies is well
organised. It is simply that the over-production of food probably has some
significant national security advantages. Running out of food is even worse
than running out of oil, steal or microprocessors.

This would only be likely happen in a wartime scenario and it would force you
to invade another nation to secure access to food or surrender. Having to do
this (invade) when you are already obviously streched to the limit would be a
significant disadvantage.

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pragmatic
Welcome to the new Reddit. Please enjoy your stay.

I wonder how onilne communities begin to deteriorate? Could it be the slow
introduction of overtly political material?

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whacked_new
I don't think so. I think it is tolerance of inanity.

Once you get used to it (as Reddit has), vapid comments and submissions begin
to look normal, and so does the lowered overall level of thought. This place
has held up pretty well though, because it isn't so tolerant. Tell too many
jokes and watch the downmods pile... down.

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rms
>tolerance of inanity.

Thank you. That sums it up.

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rmason
We currently pay less for our food as a percentage of income than any other
nation in the world, so despite his belief that farmed subsidies are not
worthwhile we're doing pretty well.

Many times in our history the government has interceded when farm prices grew
too high so most in agriculture believe that it has an obligation to help when
prices are low. Having watched these cycles closely for over 30 years if you
believe that the policy makers can remove themselves entirely from agriculture
you're naive.

The American people have been pretty supportive of farmers and indeed farmers
poll much higher than the president or congress.

Despite only being four percent of the population agriculture is extemely
competitive. It is also the only industry where you buy retail and sell
wholesale. If you totally eliminated farm subsidies you would spur an even
higher concentration in agriculture. Things would reach a tipping point where
farmers would organize into labor unions or price setting cartels. If that
happens OPEC wouldn't be the only cartel we'd have to worry about.

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LogicHoleFlaw
Consumer prices may be lower, but how much of that comes out of an
individual's taxes?

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ivankirigin
I drove through Iowa recently, and couldn't get the farm subsidies out of my
head. I had a good steak though.

