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Farm subsidies generally serve a few purposes in the US: 1. Maintaining the political support of farmers 2. Maintaining surplus food production capacity in ca
by philwelch 6y ago
Farm subsidies generally serve a few purposes in the US:
1. Maintaining the political support of farmers
2. Maintaining surplus food production capacity in case of some contingency (e.g. war).
The same is true for many developed countries. The US government actually produced “government cheese” with surplus milk to help support dairy farmers, providing the cheese to schools and welfare recipients. The EU has also experienced subsidy-related supply surpluses, including a “butter mountain” and a “wine lake”.
- JAlexoid 6y agoFoodStamps was literally created to give farmers money, indirectly. There's one issue with supporting individual products - government cannot change these rules with the consumption patterns of individuals. As such - it's not the subsidies that are the primary issue, it's the fact that the government decided that milk gets the subsidies... but almond milk gets the full market price.(As in - vegans are actually financing carnivorous american lifestyle more, than the other way around)
- philwelch 6y agoThere have been counterexamples, such as federal dietary guidelines that promoted margarine as healthier than butter. In any case, almond farming in particular is just awful.