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It's implausible that we'd ever not be able to feed ourselves without farm subsidies. About half of our wheat is exported. Even if somehow we dropped more than

It's implausible that we'd ever not be able to feed ourselves without farm subsidies. About half of our wheat is exported. Even if somehow we dropped more than 50% without farm subsidies, we have enough money that we could import from other countries; even if we faced a global ban on exporting food to the United States, it would not be difficult to begin using more land and labor to grow crops within the span of two years.

deleted 6y ago
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davidgay 6y ago
The US is far from the only country with farm subsidies. Some of those countries (e.g., Switzerland) are in fact not self-sufficient.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > US is far from the only country with farm subsidies Democracies with lots of farmland, i.e. ones with reduced food security risk, have farm subsidies because they have lots of voting farmers.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    It's sort of like how you shouldn't let the national reserve of masks go empty, even if they had not been needed for about 100 years. The thing about farms is that you can't just start producing stuff right away. It takes months to actually grow out a crop, you need a seed stock ready, and you just can't deal with sudden shocks. So you have to be always prepared because if you're not, even just for a few years, it can bite you in the ass.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      There is no evidence that continuous farm subsidies maintain agricultural output. (That’s mostly correlated to political stability and trade policy.) Periodic stability mechanisms, yes. But that is the vast minority of farm subsidies. And the whole amount of farm subsidies that go to alfalfa and cotton and tobacco fail to rise to this argument. Farm subsidies are about buying off a voting bloc. (Disclaimer: I own farmland as an investment.)
      - Natsu 6y ago
        I don't think anyone is arguing that there are some subsidies like that or that some are wasteful--you can see as much in the first few posts. They're arguing that the idea isn't categorically absurd.
        JumpCrisscross 6y ago
        I’m not arguing they’re absurd. They’re always going to be present in democracies with agricultural sectors. But if you don’t own farmland, farm subsidies are principally (to the tune of something like 85%, in America, more in Japan and Switzerland) a transfer mechanism. Not national security spending. That said, they’re political gold and so very reliable. Hence why I own farmland. (It doesn’t grow anything.)
droopyEyelids 6y ago
The countries to which we export agricultural products -could not feed themselves- without -our- wheat/soy/corn/etc. Thats the national security issue.
- scarmig 6y ago
  The largest importers of US agricultural goods are Canada, China, Mexico, and the E.U. Will China collapse if all of a sudden it faces a pork shortage?
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > Will China collapse if all of a sudden it faces a pork shortage? I think the CCP considers securing pork from price shocks to be of vital national importance. It's part of the implicit bargain they've made with the population.
VonGuard 6y ago
Shhhhhh, you are giving 2020 ideas. And the point isn't that we'd not be able to spin up farms, it's that we'd run out of food before that could be accomplished.
- scarmig 6y ago
  In the context of the USA: The hypothetical where a geopolitical rival has the capacity to shut down shipping across the entirety of the Atlantic and the Pacific isn't something that will enter the realm of plausibility within the next 5 years or so. 5 years is plenty of time to spin up farms. That's also ignoring the fact that whether we'd even need to spin up farms in a world without subsidies is an open question.
jonas21 6y ago
It's completely plausible that even a modest drop in price or increase in volatility would make it unprofitable for anyone in the US to produce wheat (or other staples). In a free market, they will just stop doing so, and production will drop to near zero. You're right that imports would make up the difference, but that's where national security comes in. If you rely on importing your food and your trading partners become adversaries or shipping is disrupted due to war, you're screwed.
- scarmig 6y ago
  In the context of the USA: We are net exporters of all the major staples. At the very least, we can ratchet down subsidies until we are no longer a net exporter of agricultural products; that level of production is sufficient to handle all our essentials. > If you rely on importing your food and shipping is disrupted due to war, you're screwed. The biggest exporters of agricultural products to the United States are Mexico and Canada, which also have plenty of excess capacity. Even in the unlikely scenario that some geopolitical rival manages to shut down trade across the Pacific and the Atlantic, we wouldn't be in a place where we have to worry about our food. If somehow our rival also had the capacity to shut down transit of goods across our land borders, they also have the capacity to shut down domestic transit of goods. I.e., even having self sufficiency based on farms in Iowa wouldn't help feed anyone on the coasts.
  - gobengo 6y ago
    > We are net exporters of all the major staples. At the very least, we can ratchet down subsidies until we are no longer a net exporter of agricultural products; that level of production is sufficient to handle all our essentials. lol not if a world war happens buddy. regardless of whether we export staples or not (and we eat more than staples), staples taste horrible without spices, which we import at net 60%, and we need more of everything when we're defending liberal values from being wiped off the earth.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      The goalposts have shifted from "having enough food to feed ourselves" to "having enough exotic spices." Even if we took that argument as compelling, it doesn't explain why we should subsidize wheat and corn instead of said exotic spices.
jfengel 6y ago
The point is to not have to depend on imports. Food is definitely something you want to have in surplus. "Two years" isn't a great length of time to be hungry. That's not to say our subsidies are targeted well. Not only do we have surplus to export, we have surplus to cram into our own mouths, causing an obesity crisis. We'd be well advised to tune the subsidies to healthier foods. We would still have a wide surplus against a crisis, while eating better. But unfortunately, long-term dependence on subsidies and some historical accidents of politics have given the existing beneficiaries a very heavy thumb on the scale of decision-making in agricultural policy.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

davidgay 6y ago

The US is far from the only country with farm subsidies. Some of those countries (e.g., Switzerland) are in fact not self-sufficient.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> US is far from the only country with farm subsidies Democracies with lots of farmland, i.e. ones with reduced food security risk, have farm subsidies because they have lots of voting farmers.
- Natsu 6y ago
  It's sort of like how you shouldn't let the national reserve of masks go empty, even if they had not been needed for about 100 years. The thing about farms is that you can't just start producing stuff right away. It takes months to actually grow out a crop, you need a seed stock ready, and you just can't deal with sudden shocks. So you have to be always prepared because if you're not, even just for a few years, it can bite you in the ass.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    There is no evidence that continuous farm subsidies maintain agricultural output. (That’s mostly correlated to political stability and trade policy.) Periodic stability mechanisms, yes. But that is the vast minority of farm subsidies. And the whole amount of farm subsidies that go to alfalfa and cotton and tobacco fail to rise to this argument. Farm subsidies are about buying off a voting bloc. (Disclaimer: I own farmland as an investment.)
    - Natsu 6y ago
      I don't think anyone is arguing that there are some subsidies like that or that some are wasteful--you can see as much in the first few posts. They're arguing that the idea isn't categorically absurd.
      - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
        I’m not arguing they’re absurd. They’re always going to be present in democracies with agricultural sectors. But if you don’t own farmland, farm subsidies are principally (to the tune of something like 85%, in America, more in Japan and Switzerland) a transfer mechanism. Not national security spending. That said, they’re political gold and so very reliable. Hence why I own farmland. (It doesn’t grow anything.)

droopyEyelids 6y ago

The countries to which we export agricultural products -could not feed themselves- without -our- wheat/soy/corn/etc. Thats the national security issue.

scarmig 6y ago
The largest importers of US agricultural goods are Canada, China, Mexico, and the E.U. Will China collapse if all of a sudden it faces a pork shortage?
- triceratops 6y ago
  > Will China collapse if all of a sudden it faces a pork shortage? I think the CCP considers securing pork from price shocks to be of vital national importance. It's part of the implicit bargain they've made with the population.

VonGuard 6y ago

Shhhhhh, you are giving 2020 ideas. And the point isn't that we'd not be able to spin up farms, it's that we'd run out of food before that could be accomplished.

scarmig 6y ago
In the context of the USA: The hypothetical where a geopolitical rival has the capacity to shut down shipping across the entirety of the Atlantic and the Pacific isn't something that will enter the realm of plausibility within the next 5 years or so. 5 years is plenty of time to spin up farms. That's also ignoring the fact that whether we'd even need to spin up farms in a world without subsidies is an open question.

jonas21 6y ago

It's completely plausible that even a modest drop in price or increase in volatility would make it unprofitable for anyone in the US to produce wheat (or other staples). In a free market, they will just stop doing so, and production will drop to near zero. You're right that imports would make up the difference, but that's where national security comes in. If you rely on importing your food and your trading partners become adversaries or shipping is disrupted due to war, you're screwed.

scarmig 6y ago
In the context of the USA: We are net exporters of all the major staples. At the very least, we can ratchet down subsidies until we are no longer a net exporter of agricultural products; that level of production is sufficient to handle all our essentials. > If you rely on importing your food and shipping is disrupted due to war, you're screwed. The biggest exporters of agricultural products to the United States are Mexico and Canada, which also have plenty of excess capacity. Even in the unlikely scenario that some geopolitical rival manages to shut down trade across the Pacific and the Atlantic, we wouldn't be in a place where we have to worry about our food. If somehow our rival also had the capacity to shut down transit of goods across our land borders, they also have the capacity to shut down domestic transit of goods. I.e., even having self sufficiency based on farms in Iowa wouldn't help feed anyone on the coasts.
- gobengo 6y ago
  > We are net exporters of all the major staples. At the very least, we can ratchet down subsidies until we are no longer a net exporter of agricultural products; that level of production is sufficient to handle all our essentials. lol not if a world war happens buddy. regardless of whether we export staples or not (and we eat more than staples), staples taste horrible without spices, which we import at net 60%, and we need more of everything when we're defending liberal values from being wiped off the earth.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    The goalposts have shifted from "having enough food to feed ourselves" to "having enough exotic spices." Even if we took that argument as compelling, it doesn't explain why we should subsidize wheat and corn instead of said exotic spices.

jfengel 6y ago

The point is to not have to depend on imports. Food is definitely something you want to have in surplus. "Two years" isn't a great length of time to be hungry. That's not to say our subsidies are targeted well. Not only do we have surplus to export, we have surplus to cram into our own mouths, causing an obesity crisis. We'd be well advised to tune the subsidies to healthier foods. We would still have a wide surplus against a crisis, while eating better. But unfortunately, long-term dependence on subsidies and some historical accidents of politics have given the existing beneficiaries a very heavy thumb on the scale of decision-making in agricultural policy.