The Truth About Farm Subsidies

[gotmilk]

pot farms don't count brah

One is tomatoes and cucumbers, the other is 3400 apple trees.

 

[puddlemonkey]

One is tomatoes and cucumbers, the other is 3400 apple trees.

what kind of apples?

 

[javaguru]

What about the argument that we need to keep our food supply domestic is case of war or world-wide disaster? If you just let market conditions prevail, a lot of our food production would go to Mexico and South America.

LOL @ try to produce food for the country if foreign oil is cut off...

Hell, thanks to the disastrous ethanol subsidies we produce much less food and a hell of a lot of "feed corn."


For people that don't know shit about farming....that's corn humans don't consume...

 

[javaguru]

That's right...I'm saying rig the game so that the third world doesn't continue to kick our asses the way they have been lately. Fucking China is manipulating it's currency to keep it low to make it's exports attractive as possible...so why can't the USA subsidize farms to keep that industry from disappearing overseas? Gotta do whatever it takes to keep the local economy churning...fuck playing fair.

Google Smoot-Hawley Act...

You're missing the point, why should I send money to someone that can't compete...it's welfare. I lose contracts to Indian and Chinese programmers but I've never gotten a welfare check paid for by the taxpayers....

 

[javaguru]

I think the article, like most everyone here, does not understand much about farm subsidy program. Though I do think it is probably time to end it, let me outline what is was designed for and how it works:

* First - a farm is limited to $50k/yr maximum subsidy so forget all this, oh the farmer down the road is a millionaire from farm subsidies.

* Second - farms are required to set out a certain percent of their land (no crops) in order to receive the crop subsidy.

* The subsidy is based on the target price to obtain a good profit margin and the actual price of the crop. So the years that you have a spike in prices, you should receive zero subsidy (if market price hits target price)

* last part of the farm subsidy was to pay farmers to turn land that should have never been farmed back into grass land. This was a major conservation program and accomplished several major things 1) brought sloped and wet lands back to their natural state 2) greatly reduced surface erosion from poor farm land. Anyone who lived in west texas before and after this program knows how well it is working.

So summary, the farm program should phase itself out, if the farmers set out enough acreage, they commodity price should equal the target price. This is not quite happening for two reason 1) world wide trade 2) government keeps raising the target price.

So the real solution to this is to roll back the target price and let the subsidies phase out as designed.

They get a matching amount of money from the feds for every acre they seed with corn..it isn't just to not produce. Like you said, that's the problem...

 

[nydj66]

LOL @ try to produce food for the country if foreign oil is cut off...

Hell, thanks to the disastrous ethanol subsidies we produce much less food and a hell of a lot of "feed corn."


For people that don't know shit about farming....that's corn humans don't consume...

The US has enough coal to meet our domestic energy needs for the next 120 years. So all we need is cost-effective electric vehicles and a shitload more powerplants to end our dependence on foreign oil.

You can be damn sure that there are government strategists who are well aware of this and will move us in that direction when the time is right.

But to play the game for full effect, we want to run the rest of the world out of oil first; eppecially when it's the least expensive option. Then our domestic reserves will be all the more valuable and we will remain the dominant world power for at least a couple more centuries.

When oil gets so expensive that people's standard of living takes a plummet, wait and see how fast the envirnomentalists get steamrollered and a bevy of new coal powerplants gets green-lighted.

 

[gotmilk]

what kind of apples?

Macs, Honeycrisp

 

[billfred]

They get a matching amount of money from the feds for every acre they seed with corn..it isn't just to not produce. Like you said, that's the problem...

No they don't. They have a corn base that shows how many acres of corn they can produce and what the average yield is for that base.

They get a check for the acres * yield * profit (profit = Target price - actual price). But in order to get that check they have to agree to not plant xx number of acres

 

[shirlene29]

I read not one post other than the first and fourth response



java, DIAF

 

[redshirt27se]

I read not one post other than the first and fourth response



java, DIAF

considering your recent circumstances i probably would have used another acronym than DIAF