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Regarding subsidies, this article changed the way I look at the european common agriculture policy. Many local economies (sugar in Jamaica, cow meat in South A

• raverbashing 6y ago
  It's been long since I haven't read such a biased text. Yes, subsidies suck, production is not always as efficient as it can be and there's a political aspect to subsidies. But food insecurity sucks more. And no, outsourcing everything won't work. But if you can't compete with agricultural produce done with higher labour cost and with freight on top there's something very wrong with your means of production. Because I can assure you most 3rd world countries don't need to import sugar or beef. But hey now the UK farmer's won't have the big bad EU subsidies and tariffs anymore so I guess it will work all good for them, no?
  • DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    > if you can't compete with agricultural produce done with higher labour cost and with freight on top there's something very wrong with your means of production. Isn't the point that EU agricultural surpluses are being dumped in undeveloped economies below cost? You can't compete on price against free (to exaggerate a bit). As I understand it, the EU subsidizes agriculture in order to ensure an overabundant food supply (and because of the political agricultural lobby). This may be a completely fine policy, because you don't want there to be famine if something goes slightly wrong. These subsidies lead to overproduction. Some of the surplus is dumped in foreign markets at prices that are well below cost. Farmers in undeveloped countries cannot compete on price. Since undeveloped countries depend more heavily on agriculture, this has an outsize impact on their economies.
    • raverbashing 6y ago
      > Some of the surplus is dumped in foreign markets at prices that are well below cost. Farmers in undeveloped countries cannot compete on price. Yes, but you would still have the transportation costs on top of them. Which depending on the product is not so cheap. It seems the policies and subsidies change with time as well and some of the overproduction was used by the EU in humanitarian programs as well. It definitely seems to be a politicized topic and I definitely don't think it is without problems. But saying it costs "16GBP per week per each family in increased food costs" is a misrepresentation at the most charitable interpretation. Feel free to compare supermarket prices of unprocessed products (with comparable quality)
  • nickik 6y ago
    Pretty much everything you said is false. First of all, the US has EXCELLENT land for farming, the idea that all food production would be outsourced without subsidies is the kind of nonsense that lobbies make up to scare people who don't understand a shred of farming or economics. You act like the US is Saudi Arabia or something. The US will have sufficient food security and significant food export without subsidies. Specially if something happened to the international food market. In New Zealand they massively cut farm subsidies and everybody expected farming to basically collapse as an industry, now they have the most effective agriculture sector in the world.
    • raverbashing 6y ago
      I wasn't referring to the US in my comment (nor was the comment I replied to).
  • Shorel 6y ago
    > But if you can't compete with agricultural produce done with higher labour cost and with freight on top there's something very wrong with your means of production. In Colombia that very wrong thing is called Monsanto and its lobby.
    • raverbashing 6y ago
      Let me guess, corn from the US? Yeah, that's a whole container filled with pallets of cans of corn-fed worms