4 ms·

>Food is, as a percentage of people's budgets, cheaper than it has ever been This is a good thing. Let's not screw it up, but rather improve on it. >where we

>Food is, as a percentage of people's budgets, cheaper than it has ever been This is a good thing. Let's not screw it up, but rather improve on it. >where we shift to more labor-intensive practices Who is going to do the work? We already struggle filling these jobs. Those jobs that are filled are unsafe and low-paying.

jfengel 6y ago
There's no reason we have to make farm work unsafe or low-paying. It's a consequence of the state of agriculture a century ago, when we were constantly afraid of running out of food. We put into place a lot of systems to drive down the price of food and increase the quantity. So yes, we should improve it. This is one suggestion for how to do so. It costs more money, but we no longer have to make price the #1 objective, not in a world where people are willing to spend $4 and up on a cup of coffee or pay a 50-100% premium for a dubious "organic" label (a term that has drifted very, very far from what it meant when Rodale coined it). That makes more money available for farm labor, to improve safety and pay workers better. It would take only a small increase in costs to make a large increase in wages: they receive only a few percent of the final consumer cost of the product.
- searine 6y ago
  >There's no reason we have to make farm work unsafe or low-paying. Okay. Who is paying for it? Farming is razor thin margins already. Most people aren't on techie salaries that can afford organic food. Raising the price is just a tax on the poor.
  - tastyfreeze 6y ago
    Food cost does not need to go up when the cost of farming goes down. Regenerative ag does take more farmers which means more jobs. The shift to regenerative farming is already happening. Gabe Brown was meeting with General Mills a couple years ago. Now General Mills is promoting pilot programs. https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainability/Regenerative-agriculture https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainabilit...
    - falcolas 6y ago
      > Regenerative ag does take more farmers which means more jobs. More workers (jobs) raises food costs, not lowers. Our savings with food crops is found mostly in the scale of production and automation.
      - tastyfreeze 6y ago
        Inputs are drastically reduced or eliminated. That is where the cost saving comes in. There is room to pay more people when you arent spending the majority of revenue on fertilizer.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        falcolas 6y ago
        By how much? Your link don't say anything about how much fertilizer usage is reduced. Nor does it mention how much formerly crop fields are now being used for ranch land. The concept of self-sustaining farming and ranching is as old as dirt itself, with various implementations including crop rotation or fallow fields, but it typically means that the are of land dedicated to a staple crop (such as oats or wheat for the exemplar GM) drops dramatically, as would the profits. Nothing in the linked literature disagrees with this notion or comments on the different costs (other than the grants for a farm that's trying it).
        tastyfreeze 6y ago
        I keep coming back to this comment for some reason. I think this video can answer some of your criticisms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuRpEA1sFow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuRpEA1sFow
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Farmers, particularly large ones, are pretty savvy about what is more or less profitable for them. If they could add labor and save more money on fertilizer than the additional labor cost, they'd probably already be doing it. Source: I dated a literal farmer's daughter and talked with him a fair bit about the economics of his farm (corn, soybeans, and dairy, plus associated by-products) and farms larger than his. He was sharp on the numbers in addition to being sharp on the biology.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Marinlemaignan 6y ago
    But, if the price increase is to give a better wage to "the poors" working in the farm, because we need more people working there to produce the same amount organically. Then, they would be able to afford those more expensive products right ?
  - rrix2 6y ago
    People who shop at neighborhood farmers' markets, as a start.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
modo_mario 6y ago
Most of those razer thin margins come from stuff like monopsonies they might push down prices on behest of the consumer but obviously also will run with as much of the profits as they can.
- tastyfreeze 6y ago
  Dont forget government subsidies for corn and soybeans that drive prices stupid low and trap farmers in corn and soybeans. Some farmers would gladly shift to more profitable crops but are stuck on corn and soybeans.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    For most farmers corn and soybeans are the most profitable crops. They are easy to farm in large quantities, and they store well. Most crops that you think of as more profitable are worth more, but not always profitable - either because so much labor is needed that you cannot scale as far, or because they spoil so fast that you can't be sure of selling your entire harvest before it rots (Corn can be stored for a few years if you need to, lettuce is not edible after a week). Also there is the demand problem - even if there is more profit in some other crop that doesn't mean there is enough demand to sustain adding another farmer without prices collapsing.

jfengel 6y ago

There's no reason we have to make farm work unsafe or low-paying. It's a consequence of the state of agriculture a century ago, when we were constantly afraid of running out of food. We put into place a lot of systems to drive down the price of food and increase the quantity. So yes, we should improve it. This is one suggestion for how to do so. It costs more money, but we no longer have to make price the #1 objective, not in a world where people are willing to spend $4 and up on a cup of coffee or pay a 50-100% premium for a dubious "organic" label (a term that has drifted very, very far from what it meant when Rodale coined it). That makes more money available for farm labor, to improve safety and pay workers better. It would take only a small increase in costs to make a large increase in wages: they receive only a few percent of the final consumer cost of the product.

searine 6y ago
>There's no reason we have to make farm work unsafe or low-paying. Okay. Who is paying for it? Farming is razor thin margins already. Most people aren't on techie salaries that can afford organic food. Raising the price is just a tax on the poor.
- tastyfreeze 6y ago
  Food cost does not need to go up when the cost of farming goes down. Regenerative ag does take more farmers which means more jobs. The shift to regenerative farming is already happening. Gabe Brown was meeting with General Mills a couple years ago. Now General Mills is promoting pilot programs. https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainability/Regenerative-agriculture https://www.generalmills.com/en/Responsibility/Sustainabilit...
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > Regenerative ag does take more farmers which means more jobs. More workers (jobs) raises food costs, not lowers. Our savings with food crops is found mostly in the scale of production and automation.
    - tastyfreeze 6y ago
      Inputs are drastically reduced or eliminated. That is where the cost saving comes in. There is room to pay more people when you arent spending the majority of revenue on fertilizer.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - falcolas 6y ago
        By how much? Your link don't say anything about how much fertilizer usage is reduced. Nor does it mention how much formerly crop fields are now being used for ranch land. The concept of self-sustaining farming and ranching is as old as dirt itself, with various implementations including crop rotation or fallow fields, but it typically means that the are of land dedicated to a staple crop (such as oats or wheat for the exemplar GM) drops dramatically, as would the profits. Nothing in the linked literature disagrees with this notion or comments on the different costs (other than the grants for a farm that's trying it).
        tastyfreeze 6y ago
        I keep coming back to this comment for some reason. I think this video can answer some of your criticisms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuRpEA1sFow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuRpEA1sFow
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Farmers, particularly large ones, are pretty savvy about what is more or less profitable for them. If they could add labor and save more money on fertilizer than the additional labor cost, they'd probably already be doing it. Source: I dated a literal farmer's daughter and talked with him a fair bit about the economics of his farm (corn, soybeans, and dairy, plus associated by-products) and farms larger than his. He was sharp on the numbers in addition to being sharp on the biology.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Marinlemaignan 6y ago
  But, if the price increase is to give a better wage to "the poors" working in the farm, because we need more people working there to produce the same amount organically. Then, they would be able to afford those more expensive products right ?
- rrix2 6y ago
  People who shop at neighborhood farmers' markets, as a start.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

modo_mario 6y ago

Most of those razer thin margins come from stuff like monopsonies they might push down prices on behest of the consumer but obviously also will run with as much of the profits as they can.

tastyfreeze 6y ago
Dont forget government subsidies for corn and soybeans that drive prices stupid low and trap farmers in corn and soybeans. Some farmers would gladly shift to more profitable crops but are stuck on corn and soybeans.
- bluGill 6y ago
  For most farmers corn and soybeans are the most profitable crops. They are easy to farm in large quantities, and they store well. Most crops that you think of as more profitable are worth more, but not always profitable - either because so much labor is needed that you cannot scale as far, or because they spoil so fast that you can't be sure of selling your entire harvest before it rots (Corn can be stored for a few years if you need to, lettuce is not edible after a week). Also there is the demand problem - even if there is more profit in some other crop that doesn't mean there is enough demand to sustain adding another farmer without prices collapsing.