4 ms·
Government encouraging overproduction of food makes absolute sense. It's this or to store backup because to run food production at an efficient "only as much as
by Gustomaximus 6y ago
Government encouraging overproduction of food makes absolute sense. It's this or to store backup because to run food production at an efficient "only as much as I needed" models a disaster waiting to happen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
- krapht 6y agoThat's an interesting question: how much would it cost to keep 3 years of food (let's assume the bare minimum - refined white flour) in reserve for the entire United States? What is the cost of food subsidies over the same period?
- selimthegrim 6y agoI think India does this and has been doing it since WWII under “public distribution system”
- gbear605 6y agoThere’s some issue with storage - long term storage of food leads to the nutrients decaying.
- imhoguy 6y agoSolution: rotation system.
- Qwertious 6y agoHistorically, governments would operate grains silos and be an intermediate purchaser, to control the cost of grain - keep it slightly higher in good years, and keep it stable in bad years by dipping into reserves. IIRC a lot of countries were forced to abolish these price controls by the WTO, and then were screwed over when they got a bad harvest and poor people had no food.