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That number should piss you off. The U.S. was by far the leading global agricultural exporter in 2020 with exports valued at $147.9 billion. [0] And it's not

That number should piss you off. The U.S. was by far the leading global agricultural exporter in 2020 with exports valued at $147.9 billion. [0] And it's not like it's hard to get the food from where it's grown to where it's needed. The US has a navigable waterway system that is smack dab in the middle of both where the food is grown and where it is eaten by the most people. That's not a coincidence.[1] I'm not playing semantic games about whether the households experiencing food insecurity are 'working poor' 'abject poor' or 'totally fucked poor'. It doesn't matter what you call it, it's a problem that we can solve in this country. [0]https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-countries-produce-most-food.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-cou... [1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_waterway.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Inland_w...

spywaregorilla 4y ago
Your first point is mostly just misleading. Yeah, we export a lot of food. We also import a lot of food. $147B for 2020, so almost dollar for dollar the same. It varies. https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-depends-on-agricultural-imports-and-exports/ https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-... Your second point is way off. Food moves crazy distances. The last mile is critically important. The direct path from farm to table is pretty much irrelevant and you couldn't possibly use the waterways to solve this problem effectively in its entirety. People don't want to eat a ton of raw corn and soy. Hunger is a problem, but it's a hard problem. Cost and nutrition and logistics do a weird dance. Many (most?) people suffering from food insecurity are also obese.
QuarterReptile 4y ago
It's literally not a problem that the government can solve, because the government classifies people to whom it provides food as 'food insecure'. If the government provided unlimited credit for all those people to spend on food, they would still be classified 'food insecure.'

spywaregorilla 4y ago

Your first point is mostly just misleading. Yeah, we export a lot of food. We also import a lot of food. $147B for 2020, so almost dollar for dollar the same. It varies. https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-depends-on-agricultural-imports-and-exports/ https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2021/08/05/food-availability-... Your second point is way off. Food moves crazy distances. The last mile is critically important. The direct path from farm to table is pretty much irrelevant and you couldn't possibly use the waterways to solve this problem effectively in its entirety. People don't want to eat a ton of raw corn and soy. Hunger is a problem, but it's a hard problem. Cost and nutrition and logistics do a weird dance. Many (most?) people suffering from food insecurity are also obese.

QuarterReptile 4y ago

It's literally not a problem that the government can solve, because the government classifies people to whom it provides food as 'food insecure'. If the government provided unlimited credit for all those people to spend on food, they would still be classified 'food insecure.'