The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Farmers and Welfare

Re: Farmers and Welfare

puttputt — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:08:00 -0000

"not having a serious famine" is setting the bar pretty darn low, no?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

jules — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:32:29 -0000

So there's a certain emotional resistance to the notion that it is necessary to provide food and shelter for able-bodied adults.

Hmmmm, what about "able-bodied" adults who can't find a job?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Jay J — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:36:23 -0000

I understood Gary Owen's point to be that some sort of domestic farming apparatus/infrastructure is preserved or kept on the ready by paying farmers to stay in business even when they "shouldn't" be in business, according to the market. His argument may be a good one or may be a bad one, but it doesn't seem to rely on any assertion about increasing supply in the mean time.

And, what's this stuff about keeping stockpiles?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

KennyBoy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:57:25 -0000

No one has mentioned free market capitalism. If we let the free market set the prices and determine who stays in business as a farmer won't we all be better off? Or does that only apply to the financial sector?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Alsadius — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:23:59 -0000

Food production is known to be variable. Hence, people keep stockpiles, often fairly big ones. Hence, we haven't had a serious famine in a developed country since, what, Ireland in the 1840s?

Also, how exactly do subsidies, which often take the form of paying people to reduce production, increase supply?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Alsadius — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:13:42 -0000

PD, what is a "milk like substance"? And who is buying it, if it's not legal to sell it as food?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Alsadius — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:11:29 -0000

Dylan, the reason we don't discuss that benefit is that we don't regard it as a valid benefit for a public policy discussion.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Alsadius — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:09:23 -0000

The demand curve for food is very, very inelastic. Probably the single most inelastic demand curve for any good that's bought or sold - gas is completely optional compared to food. In anything that bears even a passing resemblance to a market economy, you can make money selling food. Overproduction is a problem - as farmers get more efficient, we need fewer of them - but the solution to that isn't subsidies, it's for the farmers to get out of overstaffed legacy industries and into industries that actually need the labour. Yeah, some farmers will go out of business, but they should have been going out of business for 80 years now.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

DylanE — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:43:08 -0000

Oh it is undoubtedly a selfish attitude. But to be fair to myself, I'm not actually suggesting we keep farm subsidies for this reason, and I've done my fair share of arguing against them among friends and family (and on the other side I've worked with a land trust to buy land from farmers in sensitive areas). I'm not arguing that my preferences are a reason to keep subsidies, I just thought I'd mention one possible benefit of the subsidies (at least to people like me)that I haven't really seen discussed before.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

lonborgski — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:41:31 -0000

"provide food and shelter for able-bodied adults"

I am not sure which welfare progam is it that provides food and shelter for able-bodied adults?

Do you know which program farmers generally have in mind?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

questioner2012 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:54:33 -0000

Farm subsidies, as they are set up today, resemble a disease with a vicious cycle like congestive heart failure. Farm subsidies today reward massive monocrop, high yielding farms. The more you plant and higher yield attained the more money you get from the government. It isn't profitable to plant small acreages of polycultures. Farmers attempt to yield massive quantities to gain more profit. That yield floods the market and drives prices lower. The response is to produce even higher yields to continue to make the same profit. This continues to flood the market and prices continue to fall. Get the picture? This puts farmers in other countries, like Mexico, out of work and they come to the US for a job. Real farmers don't win. Multi-national food corporations win. Farmers are placed on welfare to keep commodity prices low so corporations have extremely cheap resources to keep profit margins high.

If you think that tons of "cheap" food is a good thing then you should entertain the idea that "cheap" food is an illusion. Just think of all the obesity, diabetes, heart disease, drug resistant disease, and environmental damage that has been created by the modern industrialized agriculture system. While destroying the environment, we are feeding and breeding a diseased welfare state that costs trillions of dollars. Farm subsidies have destroyed local, polyculture farms that would have allowed natural population growth in a more environmentally friendly way. It will only take time before nature outsmarts human beings and ravages our monoculture farms like the sitting ducks they are. We will starve one day with the current system as well.

Of course, when you live in suburbia it is hard to accept the fact that you would starve to death today without monoculture farms that are ran by corporate barons. Perhaps those incapable of growing their own food are the ones on welfare and not the farmers…just a thought. I encourage everyone to read Michael Pollan’s books on the food system, if you haven’t already.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

markm — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:25:58 -0000

"Firstly, people do have to pay for what it really costs to produce a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread"...but not at the point of purchase. A 100% increase (or so) in products that involved meat, grains and milk would indeed cause a hysteria even if there was an equivalent amount deducted elsewhere (which wouldn't happen).

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Garry Owen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:01:08 -0000

Farm subsidies are an insurance policy against food disruptions that the modern world is totally unprepared to handle. If you take a pure libertartian stand against them, you should ask yourself what plan you have in place for famine caused by weather or disease. At a minimum, you should be in the habit of gardening and raising a few chickens or at least have an idea how you would do so under duress. It could still happen even with subsidies.

Smaller markets such as Australia and New Zealand enjoy the protection of stable prices because North American production generates a supply that is predictable. To compare them to the United States is anecdotal at best.

With any luck, the majority of the agricultural world will embrace genetically modified seeds and crops. If not, the rate of population growth will overwhelm the productive capacity of the world's farms in the next century or so.

From a theoretical view, subsidies should be viewed like any other product or service. If we were talking about cars or electronics or other products, they would be disruptive to competition and equilibrium. For the sake of maintaining civil order and avoiding disastrous outcomes, I'm going to hope we don't.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

BP Beckley — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:52:44 -0000

I don't know, but I wouldn't really be surprised. Most of Delaware is pretty rural. If I recall correctly, there's a significant amount of chicken farming there.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

christine2010 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:51:40 -0000

Excellent point. I don't know about you but I eat almost no soybean and, unintentionally, more corn (starch, oil, and sweetner) than I need. What else do we subsidize again?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Charles — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:17:09 -0000

No we don't pay the same amount in taxes. We borrow it, and put the cost on future generations. If we really had to pay for things in taxes, cutting government spending would be a much higher priority. That is why, counter-intuitively, raising taxes, rather than cutting them, actually leads to a cut in government spending. It gets people to start paying attention.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Fraggle Rock — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:24:15 -0000

If it was only "states that have no business having 2 votes in the Senate" that was the problem, wouldn't the House of Representatives be able to stop such boondoggles? Is Delaware a big supporter of farm subsidies?

Re: Farmers and Welfare

TracyW — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:12:34 -0000

DylanE - you are free to buy as much farmland as you can afford and keep it fallow. You are also free to get together with other like-minded people and join together to buy farmland to keep it fallow.

Given the deficit that the US government is running at the moment, expecting the US government to subsidise your preference for fallow farmland beyond what you can afford strikes me as a rather selfish attitude.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

TracyW — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:06:29 -0000

Firstly, people do have to pay for what it really costs to produce a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. If governments subsidise farms we pay at least the same amount in tax as we save at the shop till (and probably more given the deadweight and administrative costs of taxes and subsidies). There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Secondly, as iolanthe says, NZ and Australia do not subsidise farmers. NZers and Australians have not revolted at the cost of paying $1-$2 a litre of milk.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Fraggle Rock — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:47:26 -0000

One of the first subsidy programs for agriculture was the Morrill Act of 1862, which established the land-grant colleges. That was followed by the Hatch Act of 1887, which funded agricultural research, and by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which funded agricultural education

In 1929 the Agricultural Marketing Act created the Federal Farm Board, which tried to raise commodity prices by stockpiling production. After spending $500 million, this first major farm boondoggle was abolished in 1933.

A large array of farm subsidies were enacted during the 1930s, beginning with the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.

Link

Re: Farmers and Welfare

markm — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:51:47 -0000

"Is it hypocritical of them to support farm subsidies? In one sense, no"

I have a friend that operates a large dairy farm in Michigan. I've talked to him on different occasions about all the different subsidies. In short, he says that "people would revolt if they had to pay for what it really costs to produce a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread". He's a pretty straight forward guy so I take him at his word.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

pj/maryland — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:36:16 -0000

My quick Google search turns up 2 Thessalonians 3:10, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat."

I also seem to remember that John Smith in Jamestown said something along the same lines: http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/captainjohnsmith3

I searched on [don't work don't eat] and [don't work eat "john smith"].

Re: Farmers and Welfare

muzzybelly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:07:01 -0000

Yep. Right on.

There is a case to made in favor of government subsidies in strategically important, infant industries. Solar power might be just an example (I said "might"). If the US develops outstanding solar power IP and production facilities, it can be a driver of high-productivity growth for a generation. It might be worth some short-term market distortion to achieve that result.

But government subsidies in mature industries like agriculture make no sense at all. Like most subsidies most everywhere, they encourage inefficiency.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

muzzybelly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:02:14 -0000

Agree entirely. Farm subsidies are probably, on aggregate, the single worst economic policy that the American government has ever foisted on the country. Whether or not they were a good idea in the Great Depression (opinion is mixed), they have certainly been a disaster since WWII.

And, perhaps not coincidentally, it's a been a perfectly bipartisan boondoggle.

It's worth remembering that farm subsidies are the direct result of the Madisonian Compromise. They exist because a lot of states that have no business having 2 votes in the Senate have them. And because we use the idiotic counting rule known as the electoral college, which gives swing states such tremendous, disproportionate influence in federal elections.

For those who oppose the national popular vote initiative (largely on partisan grounds, I would imagine, although there is a fair amount of conventional wisdom inertia as well), understand that our present system gives us farm subsidies almost automatically.

Re: Farmers and Welfare

Matt Steinglass — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:58:14 -0000

As far as I know, "He who does not work, does not eat" ("Kto ne rabotaet, tot ne est") is a Stalinist slogan used in part to legitimate the imposition of famine against enemies of the regime in the 1930s, and then for many decades to prosecute people for the crime of being unemployed. A quick Google search turns up no appearances of the slogan before its appearance in 1924 in the USSR, though I'm happy to be corrected.

There's also a funny modern-folk song by Brodiagi that communicates one of the great truths of modern capitalist Russia: "Kto ne rabotaet, tot est; a kto rabotaet, tot piot." ("He who does not work, eats (i.e. "profits"); while he who works, drinks.")