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>farm subsidies The phrase 'Farm subsidies' doesn't quite do justice to what was put into place. The phrase sounds like just giving farmers money to grow stuff
by Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
>farm subsidies
The phrase 'Farm subsidies' doesn't quite do justice to what was put into place. The phrase sounds like just giving farmers money to grow stuff, which people might think is inefficient but probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, these sorts of subsidies should increase supply and lower prices.
The reality is there's a tangled web of price controls, subsidies, import quotas, government purchases, etc. that in many cases have resulted in higher food prices, not lower food prices as simple subsidies might imply.
Take sugar, for instance. We have import quotas and tariffs on sugar resulting in higher sugar prices in the US than in the rest of the world despite having sugar growing regions in Mexico or the Caribbean on our doorstep. This is one of the reasons that we use high fructose corn syrup in everything instead of sugar. If we didn't have these laws, we'd have cheaper, more abundant sugar and probably less HFCS infused food.
- ch4s3 11y agoYeah, but we can grow corn and can't grow sugar. It a classic protectionist policy. Since HFCS and sugar are basically perfect substitutes, and the price of HFCS is so low it hardly seems to matter to consumers. Its also a stupid policy.
- Zach_the_Lizard 11y agoSugar is just a single example. Similar policies exist for milk, for instance. To add insult to injury we also have export subsidies for milk, so not only do we pay the price of higher milk at home we also pay for world prices to be lower.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago> Yeah, but we can grow corn and can't grow sugar. Both Florida and Hawaii would like a word with you. For that matter, Utah, Idaho, and Colorado (at least) used to grow large amounts of sugar beets. That ended in the 1960s or 1970s (I wasn't old enough to know if government policy changes were responsible).
- ch4s3 11y agoYeah, but we can grow corn and can't grow sugar. It a classic protectionist policy. Since HFCS and sugar are basically perfect substitutes, and the price of HFCS is so low it hardly seems to matter to consumers. Its also a stupid policy.