6 ms·

You don't need supply management to do that. Not only that, supply management is a terrible way to do that.

gerbilly 8y ago
If you meant the EPA, it looks like it isn't doing too great job of protecting the land either if peoples taps are running with manure like the article shows.
dleslie 8y ago
We look and learn from our neighbours to the South, and what outcomes we see down there generates strong public support to maintain the system we have. Frankly, as a consumer, American dairy, beef, poultry and produce make me nervous.
- gerbilly 8y ago
  I never eat any animal products when travelling in the US. They are of much lower quality, and full of hormones and additives.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  > generates strong public support to maintain the system we have. Oh, yeah, everyone loves a protectionist market, when they're part of it...
  - dleslie 8y ago
    I'm not a farmer; as a consumer in a managed market, wouldn't your platitudes imply that I should desire a free market? As it is, the products I buy are reasonably priced, high quality, and safe.
    - ucaetano 8y ago
      Even consumers frequently love the idea of a protected ("managed" market is a misleading term for "we subsidize and protect certain incumbents"), particularly when it is a national market (for nationalistic reasons) or when it is associated with a romantic/emotional vision ("oh, the poor little honest canadian farmers, working dawn to dusk and being protected from the evil massive corporations"). This is particularly true when you're not price-sensitive (i.e. poor), which by being on Hacker News, you most likely aren't. So you don't mind paying more for that emotional feeling that you're "protecting" those farmers, even if other people might be more sensitive to the cost. A government protecting farmers isn't any different than it protecting monopolies, and is just as bad. The only difference is the emotional & nostalgic impact on people.
      - dleslie 8y ago
        The difference, in this case, is objectively measurable: Canadian poultry, beef, dairy and produce are generally safer than American. Also, I'm Canadian. I'm not making an American tech salary, not by any stretch of the imagination.
        ucaetano 8y ago
        > The difference, in this case, is objectively measurable: Canadian poultry, beef, dairy and produce are generally safer than American. I'd like to see sources for that, and even if that's true, it doesn't imply that the market subsidies are the cause of that. > Also, I'm Canadian. I'm not making an American tech salary, not by any stretch of the imagination. You don't have to be making a tech salary to be less sensitive about the price of beef.
        ViktorV 8y ago
        I never quite understood this. I'm from eastern EU, I don't consider my country "poor", but people who are on the bottom of the economic ladder do not eat beef here ( cheap beef is ~4usd/lbs, chicken thighs are 1.5usd/lbs ). Maybe it's just my ignorance, but for me this sounds equally ridiculous to someone who expresses his concerns about how poor people could afford lobsters if the price goes any higher. Pure meat is expensive, and it's a luxury, not a necessity. The prices of meats are roughly equal to the US and making 20k$/yr makes you rich here, money won't be a limiting factor when it comes to food. Avg. salary in Missisipi is 40k$/yr, and that's the lowest one. Of course you can't eat out in the nicest places every day from that salary. This is what constitutes being poor in the US ( not being able to do that )? You can always cook at home, and it's very cheap, is the price of the food really a big weight for people in the US ( let's say the bottom 40% )? Maybe being poor is just being poor compared to others in your area, and it's mostly a mental thing. I lived on 250usd/month and life was good. Went to the farmers market, cooked my own food, I felt spoiled by the food choices I could make. I can make amazing food from various intestines, the taste is amazing, cheap as hell, and it's the best quality protein you can get your hands on for example.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Can we import whatever model France has? I’m fed up with croissants made without butter and “cheese” that tastes like rubber at high prices. If it requires subsidizing farmers through higher income taxes, so be it. That makes a lot more sense than a government policy of high food prices. What next, a tax on child care? A vaccine tax? Military enrolment fee?
  - dleslie 8y ago
    That's not an artifact of supply management so much as it is health regulations. The Government is worried that unpasteurized dairy will kill us, so we miss out on a fair amount of cheeses.
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      It’s not just the unpasteurized dairy I’m missing. The prices on the cheese that we import is dramatically higher than expected for an imported good.
      - dleslie 8y ago
        Imported cheese tariffs are an international trade issue. CETA was intended to help with this, but grocers et al aren't choosing to import European cheeses. :( https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/buyer-beware-european-cheesemakers-complain-canada-not-importing-all-the-cheese-it-said-it-would-under-trade-deal https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/buyer-beware...
        Scoundreller 8y ago
        The tariffs exist to protect the supply management system. No tariffs = disappearance of supply management overnight. CETA only slightly increased the amount of cheese that can be imported duty/tariff free. It’s by no means a free-for-all with EU cheese. I wish it were.
        8y ago
pkilgore 8y ago
This is a great comment, and really a key here. If you have a nail (environmental problem) hit it with a hammer (environmental regulation or tort liability deregulation). You can hit it with back end of a plastic screwdriver (regulate supply and demand), but you'll never do as good of a job (flush nail with no external damage) as you will using the right tools. And, to stretch the metaphor, the handle of the screwdriver might shatter and and cause a bunch of new problems without ever hammering the nail.
- firethief 8y ago
  What if you have assorted fastening implements that require different affixing tools, but they're all necessary because businesses seeking short-term profit have supplanted families who want the land to be healthy for their children?
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    > supplanted families who want the land to be healthy for their children? That's a fairy-tale story that the farming industry has been pushing around for decades to portray the image of the old-school farmer working dawn to dusk to support the family. Agriculture hasn't been like that since the dust bowl. And even then, they didn't really care about the "healthy for their children", the dust bowl happened largely due to farmers (mostly small and mid-size by then) overfarming their lands and using deep plowing to overcome top-soil degradation. Agriculture is a high-risk, capital-intensive industry that benefits dramatically from economies of scale. Drop the romantic, nostalgic fantasia that so many still carry around farming.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
specialist 8y ago
How do you propose we protect the landscape, water, ecology? Do you have any realworld examples for us to study and learn from?
- ucaetano 8y ago
  > How do you propose we protect the landscape, water, ecology? Through environmental regulation, protected areas, permitting, environmental reviews, etc. This is the common model in most of the world. It works well in some places and not well in others, just as laws sometimes work, and sometimes don't. Passing subsidies to farmers might (strong emphasis on might) have some unintended benefits to the environment (or not), but it is a terrible way to try to protect the environment, particularly because most (if not all) of the investment in this goes to the profit margins of the farmers. And sure, there are plenty of real world examples: look at environmental review and permitting processes for your city or state. I happen to be very close to a number of environmental engineers who handle such permits on a daily basis, both on the granting as well as on the requesting side. Want to build a road on your farm, or increase your farming area? You'll likely have to submit a permit to Fish & Wildlife, as well as to the county water authority, to the Army Corps of Engineers, etc. Depending on the type of work, you might need to hire an engineering firm to do hydrological analysis and understand how the work impacts water drainage and flow, how it impacts flow downstream to other properties, and often enough to sensitive environments miles away. One example was a friend of mine doing work for a homeowner in an unincorporated area who wanted to build a culvert under their driveway to increase drainage and reduce the risk of flood on his property. Well, while building the culvert would increase the flow and decrease the risk of flood in his property, it would also mean that the flow downstream would increase significantly, resulting in higher flood risk to other properties downstream. Open, rugged soil acts as a sponge and as "potential energy dissipators", slowing the flow of water during heavy rains. Paving means that all the water flows downstream quickly, flooding lower areas. Also, the culvert would channelize a lot of the water flow, meaning that the toxic substances from the driveaway and the home's roof would not be spread out in a harmless way (the solution to pollution is dilution) that can be handled by the ecosystem, bubt would flow quickly to streams and pools in the lower areas, increasing the concentration of such substances to unacceptable levels and damaging the critical environment for an at-risk endemic species of frogs. While the homeowner dismissed my friend's concerns and decided to request the permit anyway, it is highly likely that the permit will be rejected because of the points above (actually, I know the person handling the permit on the government's side, it will be rejected for sure).

If you meant the EPA, it looks like it isn't doing too great job of protecting the land either if peoples taps are running with manure like the article shows.

dleslie 8y ago

We look and learn from our neighbours to the South, and what outcomes we see down there generates strong public support to maintain the system we have. Frankly, as a consumer, American dairy, beef, poultry and produce make me nervous.

gerbilly 8y ago
I never eat any animal products when travelling in the US. They are of much lower quality, and full of hormones and additives.
ucaetano 8y ago
> generates strong public support to maintain the system we have. Oh, yeah, everyone loves a protectionist market, when they're part of it...
- dleslie 8y ago
  I'm not a farmer; as a consumer in a managed market, wouldn't your platitudes imply that I should desire a free market? As it is, the products I buy are reasonably priced, high quality, and safe.
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    Even consumers frequently love the idea of a protected ("managed" market is a misleading term for "we subsidize and protect certain incumbents"), particularly when it is a national market (for nationalistic reasons) or when it is associated with a romantic/emotional vision ("oh, the poor little honest canadian farmers, working dawn to dusk and being protected from the evil massive corporations"). This is particularly true when you're not price-sensitive (i.e. poor), which by being on Hacker News, you most likely aren't. So you don't mind paying more for that emotional feeling that you're "protecting" those farmers, even if other people might be more sensitive to the cost. A government protecting farmers isn't any different than it protecting monopolies, and is just as bad. The only difference is the emotional & nostalgic impact on people.
    - dleslie 8y ago
      The difference, in this case, is objectively measurable: Canadian poultry, beef, dairy and produce are generally safer than American. Also, I'm Canadian. I'm not making an American tech salary, not by any stretch of the imagination.
      - ucaetano 8y ago
        > The difference, in this case, is objectively measurable: Canadian poultry, beef, dairy and produce are generally safer than American. I'd like to see sources for that, and even if that's true, it doesn't imply that the market subsidies are the cause of that. > Also, I'm Canadian. I'm not making an American tech salary, not by any stretch of the imagination. You don't have to be making a tech salary to be less sensitive about the price of beef.
        ViktorV 8y ago
        I never quite understood this. I'm from eastern EU, I don't consider my country "poor", but people who are on the bottom of the economic ladder do not eat beef here ( cheap beef is ~4usd/lbs, chicken thighs are 1.5usd/lbs ). Maybe it's just my ignorance, but for me this sounds equally ridiculous to someone who expresses his concerns about how poor people could afford lobsters if the price goes any higher. Pure meat is expensive, and it's a luxury, not a necessity. The prices of meats are roughly equal to the US and making 20k$/yr makes you rich here, money won't be a limiting factor when it comes to food. Avg. salary in Missisipi is 40k$/yr, and that's the lowest one. Of course you can't eat out in the nicest places every day from that salary. This is what constitutes being poor in the US ( not being able to do that )? You can always cook at home, and it's very cheap, is the price of the food really a big weight for people in the US ( let's say the bottom 40% )? Maybe being poor is just being poor compared to others in your area, and it's mostly a mental thing. I lived on 250usd/month and life was good. Went to the farmers market, cooked my own food, I felt spoiled by the food choices I could make. I can make amazing food from various intestines, the taste is amazing, cheap as hell, and it's the best quality protein you can get your hands on for example.
Scoundreller 8y ago
Can we import whatever model France has? I’m fed up with croissants made without butter and “cheese” that tastes like rubber at high prices. If it requires subsidizing farmers through higher income taxes, so be it. That makes a lot more sense than a government policy of high food prices. What next, a tax on child care? A vaccine tax? Military enrolment fee?
- dleslie 8y ago
  That's not an artifact of supply management so much as it is health regulations. The Government is worried that unpasteurized dairy will kill us, so we miss out on a fair amount of cheeses.
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    It’s not just the unpasteurized dairy I’m missing. The prices on the cheese that we import is dramatically higher than expected for an imported good.
    - dleslie 8y ago
      Imported cheese tariffs are an international trade issue. CETA was intended to help with this, but grocers et al aren't choosing to import European cheeses. :( https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/buyer-beware-european-cheesemakers-complain-canada-not-importing-all-the-cheese-it-said-it-would-under-trade-deal https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/buyer-beware...
      - Scoundreller 8y ago
        The tariffs exist to protect the supply management system. No tariffs = disappearance of supply management overnight. CETA only slightly increased the amount of cheese that can be imported duty/tariff free. It’s by no means a free-for-all with EU cheese. I wish it were.
        8y ago

pkilgore 8y ago

This is a great comment, and really a key here. If you have a nail (environmental problem) hit it with a hammer (environmental regulation or tort liability deregulation). You can hit it with back end of a plastic screwdriver (regulate supply and demand), but you'll never do as good of a job (flush nail with no external damage) as you will using the right tools. And, to stretch the metaphor, the handle of the screwdriver might shatter and and cause a bunch of new problems without ever hammering the nail.

firethief 8y ago
What if you have assorted fastening implements that require different affixing tools, but they're all necessary because businesses seeking short-term profit have supplanted families who want the land to be healthy for their children?
- ucaetano 8y ago
  > supplanted families who want the land to be healthy for their children? That's a fairy-tale story that the farming industry has been pushing around for decades to portray the image of the old-school farmer working dawn to dusk to support the family. Agriculture hasn't been like that since the dust bowl. And even then, they didn't really care about the "healthy for their children", the dust bowl happened largely due to farmers (mostly small and mid-size by then) overfarming their lands and using deep plowing to overcome top-soil degradation. Agriculture is a high-risk, capital-intensive industry that benefits dramatically from economies of scale. Drop the romantic, nostalgic fantasia that so many still carry around farming.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

specialist 8y ago

How do you propose we protect the landscape, water, ecology? Do you have any realworld examples for us to study and learn from?

ucaetano 8y ago
> How do you propose we protect the landscape, water, ecology? Through environmental regulation, protected areas, permitting, environmental reviews, etc. This is the common model in most of the world. It works well in some places and not well in others, just as laws sometimes work, and sometimes don't. Passing subsidies to farmers might (strong emphasis on might) have some unintended benefits to the environment (or not), but it is a terrible way to try to protect the environment, particularly because most (if not all) of the investment in this goes to the profit margins of the farmers. And sure, there are plenty of real world examples: look at environmental review and permitting processes for your city or state. I happen to be very close to a number of environmental engineers who handle such permits on a daily basis, both on the granting as well as on the requesting side. Want to build a road on your farm, or increase your farming area? You'll likely have to submit a permit to Fish & Wildlife, as well as to the county water authority, to the Army Corps of Engineers, etc. Depending on the type of work, you might need to hire an engineering firm to do hydrological analysis and understand how the work impacts water drainage and flow, how it impacts flow downstream to other properties, and often enough to sensitive environments miles away. One example was a friend of mine doing work for a homeowner in an unincorporated area who wanted to build a culvert under their driveway to increase drainage and reduce the risk of flood on his property. Well, while building the culvert would increase the flow and decrease the risk of flood in his property, it would also mean that the flow downstream would increase significantly, resulting in higher flood risk to other properties downstream. Open, rugged soil acts as a sponge and as "potential energy dissipators", slowing the flow of water during heavy rains. Paving means that all the water flows downstream quickly, flooding lower areas. Also, the culvert would channelize a lot of the water flow, meaning that the toxic substances from the driveaway and the home's roof would not be spread out in a harmless way (the solution to pollution is dilution) that can be handled by the ecosystem, bubt would flow quickly to streams and pools in the lower areas, increasing the concentration of such substances to unacceptable levels and damaging the critical environment for an at-risk endemic species of frogs. While the homeowner dismissed my friend's concerns and decided to request the permit anyway, it is highly likely that the permit will be rejected because of the points above (actually, I know the person handling the permit on the government's side, it will be rejected for sure).