2 ms·

> Have you seen the amount of subsidies that exist for Ag? Yeah, you're right. I think agriculture historically (and in many nations) has been one of the more

> Have you seen the amount of subsidies that exist for Ag? Yeah, you're right. I think agriculture historically (and in many nations) has been one of the more powerful special-interest groups and has gotten lots of legislation passed on their behalf. As Catch-22 has it: His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Still, in spite of the distortions to the market, my impression is that it's still a functioning market, the barriers to entry are not very high, there's sufficient competition, and we are not in any danger of shortages. (Finding healthy food at a decent price may be another matter...)

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Still, in spite of the distortions to the market, my impression is that it's still a functioning market, the barriers to entry are not very high, there's sufficient competition, and we are not in any danger of shortages. (Finding healthy food at a decent price may be another matter...) I take issue with your conclusion, just look at the consolidation by the massive Ag-corps owned by big Pharma. Monsanto's purchase from Bayer is cause for extreme concern, but Dupont and Novartis via Syngenta are another massive corp which in tandem with Nestle repersent a large segment of food and water in the World, as well as seed stock. The barrier of entry is hard, depending on which crop and partly why I got into Ag (biodynamic horticulture with an emphasis in hemp), but I'm proud to say that we have solved that problem in the US. As for the price of food, we have never had cheaper food, actually and I'd argue this is holding back many more to enter the sector--prior to COVID we were making amazing progress in making more young, first time (small) farmers. With that said, we are in a much better place then when I started all of this back in 2008, where farmer's markets were fringe and tech money flowing into a company like whole Foods was unthinkable, so I'm bowing out and letting the younger bucks take the helm and eagerly anticipate better results then what my generation did.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Still, in spite of the distortions to the market, my impression is that it's still a functioning market, the barriers to entry are not very high, there's sufficient competition, and we are not in any danger of shortages. (Finding healthy food at a decent price may be another matter...) I take issue with your conclusion, just look at the consolidation by the massive Ag-corps owned by big Pharma. Monsanto's purchase from Bayer is cause for extreme concern, but Dupont and Novartis via Syngenta are another massive corp which in tandem with Nestle repersent a large segment of food and water in the World, as well as seed stock. The barrier of entry is hard, depending on which crop and partly why I got into Ag (biodynamic horticulture with an emphasis in hemp), but I'm proud to say that we have solved that problem in the US. As for the price of food, we have never had cheaper food, actually and I'd argue this is holding back many more to enter the sector--prior to COVID we were making amazing progress in making more young, first time (small) farmers. With that said, we are in a much better place then when I started all of this back in 2008, where farmer's markets were fringe and tech money flowing into a company like whole Foods was unthinkable, so I'm bowing out and letting the younger bucks take the helm and eagerly anticipate better results then what my generation did.