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Why is subsidizing corn a bad thing? Honest question.
by e2le 7y ago
Why is subsidizing corn a bad thing? Honest question.
- jdub 7y agoIt distorts the market by incentivising corn farming. Want to know why so many US farmers grow corn, lobby for bio ethanol fuel laws, and why an ungodly amount of US food is based on corn and corn byproducts (e.g. high fructose corn syrup)? Corn subsidies.
- Vadoff 7y agoIt sucks because high fructose corn syrup tastes worse than sugar for a lot of people too.
- organsnyder 7y agoThe corn monoculture in the United States is so pervasive, we hardly notice it—especially for someone like me that's lived under the regime my entire life (I'm in my mid-30s). It's caused us to use corn in places where other materials may be more optimal—for the environment, our health, and even economically—if it weren't for subsidies. I know someone who has a severe corn allergy (or reaction of some sort). He has to be careful even purchasing "fresh" non-corn vegetables at the supermarket, as they are often coated with a corn-based preservative.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Forbo 7y agoReminds me of this thread: Corn is not a food, it's a platform. https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1074810043495796736 https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/10748100434957967...
- drak0n1c 7y agoIf most of the world's practical alternative to US corn is palm oil and other cheap slash and burn crops - abandoning corn won't be good for the environment.
- organsnyder 7y agoIs that the case, though?
- UncleEntity 7y agoIt distorts the market so you get things like high fructose corn syrup drinks instead of sugar -- which, BTW, has high tariffs to protect domestic growers -- while consumers would probably prefer sugar drinks if they had a real choice.
- beat 7y agoHFCS is common not just because of corn subsidies, but also because of sugar tariffs. The US has very high protective tariffs for our domestic sugar industry, which makes sugar more expensive in the US relative to the rest of the world. HFCS steps into that price differential.
- hashkb 7y agoBecause too much is grown, at meh quality, and so we end up with byproducts like HFCS (instead of cane sugar) or cheap animal feed because farmers aren't responding to market demand.
- KirinDave 7y agoWe might also note that many farmers grow types of corn bred and genetically tweaked such that it's not even really fit for human consumption but rather maximizes properties ideal for industrial processing.
- vinay427 7y ago> HFCS (instead of cane sugar) Minor suggestion but the more realistic alternative is beet sugar, which is far more local to most of North America and Europe. Cane sugar is typically a more expensive imported thing, at least in much of the US and where I currently live in Europe.
- tialaramex 7y agoAs I understand it beet only makes economic sense if you can process it where it's growing or nearby. The transport costs are so much higher (less sugar dense plant? not sure why) that cane producers will out-compete you unless you get rid of that problem.
- MichaelApproved 7y agoFlip it around. Why is subsidizing corn a good thing?
- imglorp 7y agoIt's great if you're trying to win a PR show against a cold war rival and bankrupt them. That was the original purpose of the USDA including roads, marketing, and subsidies.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoIt's better to produce too much food and keep it cheap than to risk a shortage and have people starve.
- serpix 7y agoIn nature nothing is ever produced in a vacuum. There is a bill to pay for overproducing and the effects are coming for us.
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoI know you are alluding to climate change, but paying money for security is perfectly fine.
- greglindahl 7y agoThe US produces far more corn than is needed for a secure supply of human food for the US population.
- empath75 7y agoFarming is very fossil fuel intensive.
- hyperbovine 7y agoGrowing it to feed humans is fine. But that's a tiny sliver of the overall market. Then some if it gets made into HFCS, which is not good. Even more of it gets fed to cows, which is not good (they should be eating grass), and which have (not good) climate impacts of its own. And some of it even gets converted into fuel, which is downright dumb. Basically it's a massively subsidized crop which would never be grown at this scale without tremendous market distortion by the government. (To say nothing of the fact that it destroyed an entire ecosystem in the midwest.)
- tomp 7y ago> And some of it even gets converted into fuel, which is downright dumb Honest question, why is that dumb? Seems to be that would be the "correct" way of producing fuel, as it's zero-net-carb.
- henrikschroder 7y agoGrowing the corn requires fertilizer, which is produced from oil, it requires irrigation and water, and it requires large amounts of land, all of which can be put to better use growing food for humans.
- BurningFrog 7y agoI wonder how much of US corn subsidies exist because Iowa is so important to getting elected President?
- merpnderp 7y agoThe biggest corn subsidy in the US is ethanol for vehicles. It can take as much as 2 gallons of gasoline to produce a single gallon of ethanol, so this is just insane. This was a known fact before the subsidy was passed and was an incontrovertible fact after it was passed, and yet it is now impossible to stay elected in the US and talk about rolling this subsidy back. So it is absolutely horrible. (Fortunately car batteries are getting insanely good and this probably will likely fix itself.)
- mrep 7y ago> It can take as much as 2 gallons of gasoline to produce a single gallon of ethanol, so this is just insane. You got a source for that claim because wikipedia says it has a energy return on investment of 1.5:1 [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_ethanol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_ethanol
- pfdietz 7y agoIt distorts the market, leading to suboptimal allocation of resources.
- lucidguppy 7y agoIf you stopped subsidizing corn... meat price will go way up. This is good for the environment.