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Why subsidize water for agriculture at all. The USA is already the country spending the least on food in the world [0]. And the obesity crisis isn't shouting "w

by mrpopo 3y ago

Why subsidize water for agriculture at all. The USA is already the country spending the least on food in the world [0]. And the obesity crisis isn't shouting "well thought out agricultural plans" to me. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-consumer-expenditure-spent-on-food?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-consumer-expendi...

Night_Thastus 3y ago
Agriculture subsidies and obesity are orthogonal problems in my view.
- Jweb_Guru 3y ago
  They're very much correlated, even though obviously they don't explain anywhere close to all of the obesity problem. A significant amount of food advertising is due to needing to find ways to sell the tremendous surplus of some crops, milk, etc. that the US produces due to these subsidies. Food advertising is known to be effective and is a contributor to obesity.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    I don't think mcdonalds advertises because they have a stockpile of corn and nothing to do with it. Food vendors advertise because more purchases mean more profit. The government subsidizes the corn producers basically whether or not they actually sell anything. The entire purpose is to keep them on standby if we ever somehow become completely cut off from the rest of the world. I'm pretty sure mcdonalds and frito lays would still be advertising even if their input resources quadrupled in price. Everything is made with corn syrup because it is cheap, because it is an easy use for corn. If we made it easier to turn into other products like beef feed and ethanol, or less profitable to use corn syrup like with a tax, then there would be less corn syrup in food, but anything that doesn't provide an easy use for the oversupply will not work, because it just doesn't meet the desire of the US government to keep an obscene oversupply of corn in the market.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      Government doesn't need oversupply. It is just historically rural regions in the US farmed corn, and it was enough for the US and little bit of export. But over time agriculture effectiveness has significantly improved due to: fertilizer technology (CF Industries), agricultural equipment (John Deere), seeds technology (Monsanto Bayer Dow Chemical), food processing. Thanks to that, the yield has significantly improved and amount of corn produced has increased dramatically, even without increasing land Think of Moore's Law, but applied to food instead of microtransistors
- slt2021 3y ago
  the reason why bread in the US is sweet, when compared to Europe is high fructose corn syrup. US corn farmers are producing so much corn with subsidies, that they dont know what to do with it. From here you get more subsidies for ethanol gasoline (ethanol extracted from food - corn), and more subsidies for processed food - HFCS being added generously into everything! Without corn overproduction, the sugar consumption would be much smaller in the US and diabetes problem would not be as severe as it is

by mrpopo 3y ago

Night_Thastus 3y ago

Agriculture subsidies and obesity are orthogonal problems in my view.

Jweb_Guru 3y ago
They're very much correlated, even though obviously they don't explain anywhere close to all of the obesity problem. A significant amount of food advertising is due to needing to find ways to sell the tremendous surplus of some crops, milk, etc. that the US produces due to these subsidies. Food advertising is known to be effective and is a contributor to obesity.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  I don't think mcdonalds advertises because they have a stockpile of corn and nothing to do with it. Food vendors advertise because more purchases mean more profit. The government subsidizes the corn producers basically whether or not they actually sell anything. The entire purpose is to keep them on standby if we ever somehow become completely cut off from the rest of the world. I'm pretty sure mcdonalds and frito lays would still be advertising even if their input resources quadrupled in price. Everything is made with corn syrup because it is cheap, because it is an easy use for corn. If we made it easier to turn into other products like beef feed and ethanol, or less profitable to use corn syrup like with a tax, then there would be less corn syrup in food, but anything that doesn't provide an easy use for the oversupply will not work, because it just doesn't meet the desire of the US government to keep an obscene oversupply of corn in the market.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    Government doesn't need oversupply. It is just historically rural regions in the US farmed corn, and it was enough for the US and little bit of export. But over time agriculture effectiveness has significantly improved due to: fertilizer technology (CF Industries), agricultural equipment (John Deere), seeds technology (Monsanto Bayer Dow Chemical), food processing. Thanks to that, the yield has significantly improved and amount of corn produced has increased dramatically, even without increasing land Think of Moore's Law, but applied to food instead of microtransistors
slt2021 3y ago
the reason why bread in the US is sweet, when compared to Europe is high fructose corn syrup. US corn farmers are producing so much corn with subsidies, that they dont know what to do with it. From here you get more subsidies for ethanol gasoline (ethanol extracted from food - corn), and more subsidies for processed food - HFCS being added generously into everything! Without corn overproduction, the sugar consumption would be much smaller in the US and diabetes problem would not be as severe as it is