6 ms·

Farming is low margin. Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products, and they aren’t handed billions in capital to burn through or 1000x multiples on th

by kolbe 6y ago

Farming is low margin. Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products, and they aren’t handed billions in capital to burn through or 1000x multiples on their profit in the public markets. When most businesses say they can’t hire someone and the reason is because they don’t pay enough, the underlying cause of their low pay is usually because that’s what the company can afford. Sure, farmers could pay $10/hr, but unless your Doritos were $10 a bag, they’d lose money.

WJW 6y ago
...yes? The alternative to farmers is not harvesting their crops at all, since with the borders closed foreign labor is not available. If nobody wants to buy $10 doritos, that means the product can't exist in a market without cheap labor.
- antihero 6y ago
  Well perhaps that's the problem of the market. That it can't particularly function to enrich some people without gross levels of exploitation.
  - ihsw 6y ago
    Being paid $5/hour farming in Australia vs $0.50/hour assembling shoes in Malaysia. Wow, such exploitation. "Exploitation" is a relative term, some people would rather be exploited in the countryside of a first-world nation rather than the countryside of their homeland.
    - antihero 6y ago
      Yes, they are both exploitation and they are both evil.
      - ihsw 6y ago
        In any case, people should have the freedom to choose.
      - jacobolus 6y ago
        Which is more exploitative, working for $5/hour in agriculture in a wealthy country, 50¢/hour in an urban factory in a poor country, or $1/day in a rural peasant village somewhere or having no work at all? It’s all relative.
        riskable 6y ago
        That's a bit like asking, "Which is worse? A shot to the head or an overdose of morphine?" Either way the person's going to die.
    - shakna 6y ago
      > Being paid $5/hour farming in Australia vs $0.50/hour assembling shoes in Malaysia. Wow, such exploitation. The Australian national minimum wage is $19.84/hr. Getting paid about a quarter of minimum wage is very clearly exploitation. There may be other benefits for actually working in Australia, but that's not really relevant here when you're trying to attract native Australians to work for you.
      - stubish 6y ago
        In particular, when the wage is low enough you have slavery in all but name. People working for your shitty pay staying in your shitty dormitory eating your shitty food because they can't afford not. The end result people leaving when visas run out with more debt, and headlines about people forced to pick fruit in bikinis and allegations of sexual assault, because that happens when some people gain that sort of power.
  - kipchak 6y ago
    To me it always seemed a bit similar to justifications used for the "peculiar institution" - the system can't exist without slavery, therefore slavery must exist. The benefits of cheaper labor was well appreciated; Carnegie called immigration "the golden stream which flows into the country every year."[1] [1]https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/andrew-carnegie/triumphant-democracy-or-fifty-years-march-of-the-republic-ala-425/page-3-triumphant-democracy-or-fifty-years-march-of-the-republic-ala-425.shtml https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/andrew-carnegie/trium...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- relaxing 6y ago
  True! Except it's not just doritos, it's everything you eat. And it's not just cheap labor, it's labor exploited under pain of deportation.
- thrower123 6y ago
  Doritos aren't going to get more expensive, because like all the real staple crops, corn is completely mechanized, and you have one guy driving an air-conditioned tractor or combine, following GPS-plotted courses.
SilasX 6y ago
Not sure that’s the best example to use, since food costs are a trivial fraction of the retail price of a bag of Doritos, and harvesting labor is a trivial fraction of the price of food. Edit: that was just based on my general memory of non-perishable food economics. But I googled it and found this (sorry, quora) from someone who would know, a 2 oz bag of potato chips costs 15 cents to produce and bring to (retail) market. Of that, a fraction is potato prices. https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-bag-of-57g-of-Lays-actually-cost-to-the-company/answer/Chris-Daskam https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-bag-of-57g-of-Lays-act... Edit: fix Verizon math.
raffraffraff 6y ago
The reason I buy expensive eggs, milk and cheese is that I know that the supermarkets fuck over the farmers. I never buy the supermarket brand, unless it's the last one on the shelf. The price difference is sometimes 1.5x but unless you're really "broke" broke, you don't notice the difference. It's a few cents a week.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  Good idea, but how do you know the extra money is properly passed on?
  - knightofmars 6y ago
    While, like most things in life, it's not a guarantee, doing basic research about the farms and the cooperatives that produce the goods will provide some insight. Almost anything is better than a CAFO (Concentrated animal feeding operation).
- kbelder 6y ago
  I always buy the supermarket brand, even though I can easily afford more. It's not because I want to save a few pennies on each purchase; it's helping to drive prices down on all overpriced goods, helping out those really in need. Same reason I avoid organic whenever possible. We don't need boutique food.
  - cammikebrown 6y ago
    I agree much of the “benefits” of organic food are not really true or meaningful, but I do try and buy local when I can.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    That doesn't even make sense in neoclassical economics. One person's effects on the market are necessarily tiny, but if buying more of Brand X has any effect it will be to drive up the price of Brand X. You're actually harming "those really in need", and you should feel bad about it.
CydeWeys 6y ago
People have to eat food. Food in aggregate has one of the most inelastic demand curves imaginable. If the price rises because the production costs increase, people will still buy food. They might buy different food, and you'll see a decrease in acreage given over to labor-intensive crops, but that's just the free market at work.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  The thing is, if farmers in Australia increase wages and thus their product becomes more expensive, the product on supermarket shelves will not become more expensive. Rather, supermarkets will import food from another country. Food is, with few exceptions, a commodity. The producer does not set the price of the commodity, the market does. I am telling this as an engineer working in the Canada's oil and gas sector. Since 2014, salaries in our sector have decreased and firms are struggling. "Just raise the price of oil" is not an actionable advice. The price of oil is not ours to set. It's the market's
  - ksec 6y ago
    It just shows most people working in Tech Industry, and specifically software ( or web ) development ( as oppose to Tech / software within Oil Industry or any other industry ) have absolutely zero idea on market or commodity trading.
  - wing-_-nuts 6y ago
    I consider food security a national security issue. Produce is one of the few areas where I would consider a tarif justified. Every country should be able to feed it's citizens with the food grown there, or they risk hunger when cut off by war or natural disaster.
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      And countries do that, but for a few strategic ones, not everything. Canada produces lots of wheat and dairy and maple syrup. It even has a strategic maple syrup reserve. But it does not produce a lot of citrus fruits or pistachios or dates. It may be possible for US to produce everything within the country—it is a gigantic country and has just about every climate there is. But it would be an ecological disaster if countries without those attributes do the same. Think of all the heating required to produce warm-climate fruits in Canada.
skykooler 6y ago
Sure, but they'd lose less money than if they didn't hire anyone and couldn't sell their crops at all.
csomar 6y ago
> Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products Actually farmers could set any price if they colluded to manipulate the market. People will buy food at any price and everyday.
- clipradiowallet 6y ago
  This is offset by imported food. If 100% of American farmers colluded to fix prices, they'd have their lunch eaten(hah) by food importers. Obviously not everything is importable(eg rice), but there is more to the market than the American farmers.
  - anonAndOn 6y ago
    You're right, there is more to the market but not how you describe it. Tariffs are available to any American cartel willing to buy enough politicians. Take a look at sugar, for example. [0] [0]https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/candy-coated-cartel-time-kill-us-sugar-program https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/candy-coated-cartel-tim...

by kolbe 6y ago

WJW 6y ago

...yes? The alternative to farmers is not harvesting their crops at all, since with the borders closed foreign labor is not available. If nobody wants to buy $10 doritos, that means the product can't exist in a market without cheap labor.

antihero 6y ago
Well perhaps that's the problem of the market. That it can't particularly function to enrich some people without gross levels of exploitation.
- ihsw 6y ago
  Being paid $5/hour farming in Australia vs $0.50/hour assembling shoes in Malaysia. Wow, such exploitation. "Exploitation" is a relative term, some people would rather be exploited in the countryside of a first-world nation rather than the countryside of their homeland.
  - antihero 6y ago
    Yes, they are both exploitation and they are both evil.
    - ihsw 6y ago
      In any case, people should have the freedom to choose.
    - jacobolus 6y ago
      Which is more exploitative, working for $5/hour in agriculture in a wealthy country, 50¢/hour in an urban factory in a poor country, or $1/day in a rural peasant village somewhere or having no work at all? It’s all relative.
      - riskable 6y ago
        That's a bit like asking, "Which is worse? A shot to the head or an overdose of morphine?" Either way the person's going to die.
  - shakna 6y ago
    > Being paid $5/hour farming in Australia vs $0.50/hour assembling shoes in Malaysia. Wow, such exploitation. The Australian national minimum wage is $19.84/hr. Getting paid about a quarter of minimum wage is very clearly exploitation. There may be other benefits for actually working in Australia, but that's not really relevant here when you're trying to attract native Australians to work for you.
    - stubish 6y ago
      In particular, when the wage is low enough you have slavery in all but name. People working for your shitty pay staying in your shitty dormitory eating your shitty food because they can't afford not. The end result people leaving when visas run out with more debt, and headlines about people forced to pick fruit in bikinis and allegations of sexual assault, because that happens when some people gain that sort of power.
- kipchak 6y ago
  To me it always seemed a bit similar to justifications used for the "peculiar institution" - the system can't exist without slavery, therefore slavery must exist. The benefits of cheaper labor was well appreciated; Carnegie called immigration "the golden stream which flows into the country every year."[1] [1]https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/andrew-carnegie/triumphant-democracy-or-fifty-years-march-of-the-republic-ala-425/page-3-triumphant-democracy-or-fifty-years-march-of-the-republic-ala-425.shtml https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/andrew-carnegie/trium...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
relaxing 6y ago
True! Except it's not just doritos, it's everything you eat. And it's not just cheap labor, it's labor exploited under pain of deportation.
thrower123 6y ago
Doritos aren't going to get more expensive, because like all the real staple crops, corn is completely mechanized, and you have one guy driving an air-conditioned tractor or combine, following GPS-plotted courses.

SilasX 6y ago

Not sure that’s the best example to use, since food costs are a trivial fraction of the retail price of a bag of Doritos, and harvesting labor is a trivial fraction of the price of food. Edit: that was just based on my general memory of non-perishable food economics. But I googled it and found this (sorry, quora) from someone who would know, a 2 oz bag of potato chips costs 15 cents to produce and bring to (retail) market. Of that, a fraction is potato prices. https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-bag-of-57g-of-Lays-actually-cost-to-the-company/answer/Chris-Daskam https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-bag-of-57g-of-Lays-act... Edit: fix Verizon math.

raffraffraff 6y ago

The reason I buy expensive eggs, milk and cheese is that I know that the supermarkets fuck over the farmers. I never buy the supermarket brand, unless it's the last one on the shelf. The price difference is sometimes 1.5x but unless you're really "broke" broke, you don't notice the difference. It's a few cents a week.

solarkraft 6y ago
Good idea, but how do you know the extra money is properly passed on?
- knightofmars 6y ago
  While, like most things in life, it's not a guarantee, doing basic research about the farms and the cooperatives that produce the goods will provide some insight. Almost anything is better than a CAFO (Concentrated animal feeding operation).
kbelder 6y ago
I always buy the supermarket brand, even though I can easily afford more. It's not because I want to save a few pennies on each purchase; it's helping to drive prices down on all overpriced goods, helping out those really in need. Same reason I avoid organic whenever possible. We don't need boutique food.
- cammikebrown 6y ago
  I agree much of the “benefits” of organic food are not really true or meaningful, but I do try and buy local when I can.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  That doesn't even make sense in neoclassical economics. One person's effects on the market are necessarily tiny, but if buying more of Brand X has any effect it will be to drive up the price of Brand X. You're actually harming "those really in need", and you should feel bad about it.

CydeWeys 6y ago

People have to eat food. Food in aggregate has one of the most inelastic demand curves imaginable. If the price rises because the production costs increase, people will still buy food. They might buy different food, and you'll see a decrease in acreage given over to labor-intensive crops, but that's just the free market at work.

smnrchrds 6y ago
The thing is, if farmers in Australia increase wages and thus their product becomes more expensive, the product on supermarket shelves will not become more expensive. Rather, supermarkets will import food from another country. Food is, with few exceptions, a commodity. The producer does not set the price of the commodity, the market does. I am telling this as an engineer working in the Canada's oil and gas sector. Since 2014, salaries in our sector have decreased and firms are struggling. "Just raise the price of oil" is not an actionable advice. The price of oil is not ours to set. It's the market's
- ksec 6y ago
  It just shows most people working in Tech Industry, and specifically software ( or web ) development ( as oppose to Tech / software within Oil Industry or any other industry ) have absolutely zero idea on market or commodity trading.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  I consider food security a national security issue. Produce is one of the few areas where I would consider a tarif justified. Every country should be able to feed it's citizens with the food grown there, or they risk hunger when cut off by war or natural disaster.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    And countries do that, but for a few strategic ones, not everything. Canada produces lots of wheat and dairy and maple syrup. It even has a strategic maple syrup reserve. But it does not produce a lot of citrus fruits or pistachios or dates. It may be possible for US to produce everything within the country—it is a gigantic country and has just about every climate there is. But it would be an ecological disaster if countries without those attributes do the same. Think of all the heating required to produce warm-climate fruits in Canada.

skykooler 6y ago

Sure, but they'd lose less money than if they didn't hire anyone and couldn't sell their crops at all.

csomar 6y ago

> Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products Actually farmers could set any price if they colluded to manipulate the market. People will buy food at any price and everyday.

clipradiowallet 6y ago
This is offset by imported food. If 100% of American farmers colluded to fix prices, they'd have their lunch eaten(hah) by food importers. Obviously not everything is importable(eg rice), but there is more to the market than the American farmers.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  You're right, there is more to the market but not how you describe it. Tariffs are available to any American cartel willing to buy enough politicians. Take a look at sugar, for example. [0] [0]https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/candy-coated-cartel-time-kill-us-sugar-program https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/candy-coated-cartel-tim...