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That is not a subsidy since people are paying for that food. There are benefits to both sides.

• chabes 7y ago
  This seems a tad unbalanced.. Farmers get paid almost nothing for the food they produce
  • pkaye 7y ago
    The definition of subsidy is "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive." How does that fit in this context? The fact that farmers get paid little is due to supply vs demand. Agriculture has been optimized to a great level but food transportation is expensive.
  • spaced-out 7y ago
    They don't just get paid for the food they produce, they also get to claim subsidies for food they don't grow but could have.
  • stale2002 7y ago
    That's how markets work. They get paid a low amount, because the actual real costs to produce the food is low.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• criley2 7y ago
  It's actually a subsidy in reverse: 1) The so-called "Farm Bill" provides hundreds of billions of dollars in what is essentially farmer socialism, incredible sums of money to protect farmers livelihoods from the free market. Prices too low? Government will pay you to not grow anything to inflate prices. (This doesn't include Trumps tens of billions in more farmer socialism to help protect them from his trade wars) 2) Welfare in general, generally speaking blue/liberal states and cities pay astronomically more into welfare programs (food stamps, unemployment, social security) than they draw, while red states/conservative states draw astronomically more in benefits from the federal gov than they pay. So in two hundred-billion-plus ways, the liberal cities subsidize the rural farmers and their farms. And then we buy our produce from central and south america anyway...
  • radicalbyte 7y ago
    You need to keep those farms in a position where they could actually produce said food if imports were to stop.
    • criley2 7y ago
      All of those farms are just one season away from producing food no matter who we pay transfer payments to. Considering many of those fields are left without any crops anyway, I think you overstate how reliant we are on them
  • ericd 7y ago
    Food is one of those things you really don't want to leave to the free market. That's how you get feast and famine cycles, and massive civil unrest.
    • strken 7y ago
      Australia mostly leaves food to the market, in the sense that it has some of the lowest agricultural subsidies in the developed world, and it's a net exporter of food with no famine and no civil unrest. I'm not sure that subsidies are the best government intervention, either. Strategic grain reserves are probably more useful and less distortionary.
      • ericd 7y ago
        You might be right that strategic reserves would be a better policy. I'm definitely not a fan of what corn subsidies have done to the food supply. Interesting re: Australia. I was mostly looking at the history of the US before the subsidies. There were a few extremely tough times for farmers. And in other countries' history, most revolutions seem to start with a bad year or two for crops.
        • pm90 7y ago
          > most revolutions seem to start with a bad year or two for crops. This is the main thing. The farm subsidy can be considered an exorbitant, market distorting subsidy. But food is too important to the very fabric of society, that it has to be available at reasonable prices at all times.
• tathougies 7y ago
  Sure... if you're willing to pay the true cost of food (which I think we should!), then yes, there are benefits to both sides.