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What does Ag do? "Efficiency Is Everything" eats for $500/year. Compare that to medical which is a minimum of a few thousand dollars a year if you are perfectly

What does Ag do? "Efficiency Is Everything" eats for $500/year. Compare that to medical which is a minimum of a few thousand dollars a year if you are perfectly healthy and $20000 if you have a 1 day stay at a hospital.

colordrops 5y ago
Big Ag is responsible for horrible factory farming practices growing the wrong crops and producing food lacking nutrients while destroying the environment and torturing animals. They take huge subsidies and use them to support these unsustainable practices.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  Not to mention the fragile state of supply chains for food, the food deserts, absurd water usage.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    The fact that one of the largest famines in the Western world as of late was caused by an economic system that led to people relying on monoculture crops to feed themselves[1], the fact that ours results in monocultures, as well, should be worrying. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Causes_and_contributing_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Causes_...
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  What part of that is big ag, opposed to ag in general. I don't see the difference on those topics personally.
  - worik 5y ago
    Economies of scale, when viewed from the perspective of a cattle beast in a feed lot are a horrible thing in agriculture. Modern industrial agriculture with its expensive inputs, ruination of land, and abuse of live stock is a quite horrifying thing and is impoverishing the people responsible for the base of our food supply. It is the most efficient in terms of output per input, but not by most other measures.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      But you don't need to be a monopoly or even a big company to have an awful feedlots, monocrop farming, ect.
      - colordrops 5y ago
        What you say is true in theory but not in aggregate. It's no different from any other business in that respect. Look at companies in a field you are familiar with and you will find that the very large ones are a lot more impersonal, ruthlessly efficient, and amoral.
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        That's the huristic I'm pushing back on: Big = bad, efficient = bad, ect. Some problems are indeed exaserbated at scale, others are not. I think this is especially true for the ag industry and the issues mentioned up thread. You can bust up the biggest factory farms into 100 smaller companies, but they would still have the same practices. Same with monocrop farming.
        longwick 5y ago
        But at least the concentration of wealth would not occur, and right now wealth = power, which often means anti competitive practices like simply buying competitors.
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        I'm not sure that true either. All the same people could own 100 farms as easily as one. They would just be independent companies.
      - warglebargle 5y ago
        if you have 2 big companies they’re “too big to fail” and can better whether lawsuits with massive legal teams, settlement money, pr firms… if you have a thousand smaller companies you can bankrupt 100 and be ok

colordrops 5y ago

Big Ag is responsible for horrible factory farming practices growing the wrong crops and producing food lacking nutrients while destroying the environment and torturing animals. They take huge subsidies and use them to support these unsustainable practices.

arrosenberg 5y ago
Not to mention the fragile state of supply chains for food, the food deserts, absurd water usage.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  The fact that one of the largest famines in the Western world as of late was caused by an economic system that led to people relying on monoculture crops to feed themselves[1], the fact that ours results in monocultures, as well, should be worrying. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Causes_and_contributing_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Causes_...
s1artibartfast 5y ago
What part of that is big ag, opposed to ag in general. I don't see the difference on those topics personally.
- worik 5y ago
  Economies of scale, when viewed from the perspective of a cattle beast in a feed lot are a horrible thing in agriculture. Modern industrial agriculture with its expensive inputs, ruination of land, and abuse of live stock is a quite horrifying thing and is impoverishing the people responsible for the base of our food supply. It is the most efficient in terms of output per input, but not by most other measures.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    But you don't need to be a monopoly or even a big company to have an awful feedlots, monocrop farming, ect.
    - colordrops 5y ago
      What you say is true in theory but not in aggregate. It's no different from any other business in that respect. Look at companies in a field you are familiar with and you will find that the very large ones are a lot more impersonal, ruthlessly efficient, and amoral.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        That's the huristic I'm pushing back on: Big = bad, efficient = bad, ect. Some problems are indeed exaserbated at scale, others are not. I think this is especially true for the ag industry and the issues mentioned up thread. You can bust up the biggest factory farms into 100 smaller companies, but they would still have the same practices. Same with monocrop farming.
        longwick 5y ago
        But at least the concentration of wealth would not occur, and right now wealth = power, which often means anti competitive practices like simply buying competitors.
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        I'm not sure that true either. All the same people could own 100 farms as easily as one. They would just be independent companies.
    - warglebargle 5y ago
      if you have 2 big companies they’re “too big to fail” and can better whether lawsuits with massive legal teams, settlement money, pr firms… if you have a thousand smaller companies you can bankrupt 100 and be ok