6 ms·

(I can only speak to the US, though I expect it's similar in many other western countries as well) The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized

(I can only speak to the US, though I expect it's similar in many other western countries as well) The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized and centralized food production that anyone focusing on biodiversity, sustainability, or even animal welfare can compete economically. If we care at all about any of these goals, let alone all three, the only solution seems to be a much more localized food system. Large-scale ranching and farming is heavily dependent on monoculture, i.e. growing only one type of crop or raising only one type of animal. Without this a farmer has a much harder time mechanising the process with heavy equipment, and that's a must give that exceedingly few people are willing to work on a farm. Even then, most farmers eek out a living based heavily on government subsidies and crop insurance. I'm raising a small herd of cattle on pasture, I don't have as much experience farming crops so I'll stick with ranching here. Our cows are entirely grass fed and we don't use pesticides, herbicides, or antibiotics. We don't even own a tractor because it's not economically viable to take on the upfront or maintenance costs of modern tractors. No matter how I do the math I could never sell meat or dairy at prices that come close to grocery store prices. And no, scale wouldn't solve the financial challenge. Raising healthy cattle on pasture requires much more land per head than industrial cattle production offers. Fertilizers, antibiotics, and pesticides are all additional inputs that require expensive equipment to apply properly and ultimately are just bandaids attempting to squeeze out more head per acre than the land can actually support. At the end of the day we would end up raising more cattle, but our expenses and risk would continue to grow at least as fast and we'd end up working harder and stressing out more just to make sure something doesn't go wrong and bring the entire house of cards down.

lukas099 3y ago
Isn't centralized agriculture more efficient on a calories-per-acre basis? You even say that you can't raise as many cattle as industrial cattle production. Also, the more people we can feed with land in places like the US Midwest, the less land we need to use in places like the tropics which are more important from a biodiversity standpoint.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Yes but we are past the point where calory price is the problem. That's solved. Now we need better food.
  - mym1990 3y ago
    A calorie is not indicative of nutrition. I can eat 10 pop tarts a day for a few bucks but it has little to no nutritional value.
    - throwaway894345 3y ago
      That's the parent's point.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  Centralized agriculture is not necessarily more efficient compared to localized agriculture, because centralization introduces additional machinery, transport costs, pesticide/fertilizer research/production/shipping etc etc. centralized agriculture is actually a huge resource suck compared to localized methods, which puts a huge thumb on calorie-per-acre net.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    How does labour costs compare? As in amount of living wage labour per calorie?
  - lukas099 3y ago
    On the other hand, it's easy to teach a few large farmers best practices from ag and soil science. The more decentralized agriculture becomes, the more individuals have to educate themselves. Do you trust your next door neighbors to become ag scientists to be good stewards of their land?
    - Calamitous 3y ago
      > Do you trust your next door neighbors to become ag scientists to be good stewards of their land? As someone who lives in a rural/agricultural area, yes.
aquaticsunset 3y ago
I'm hoping the pendulum swings back toward the middle of things. A huge push for centralization and subsidization was to ensure domestic food security. Famine or blight in one region? Overproduce a bit in another and ship it to those people. But somewhere along the way it flew way, way past that and created a huge opportunity for business profit. Excess production with subsidies...
pokeymcsnatch 3y ago
> We don't even own a tractor because it's not economically viable to take on the upfront or maintenance costs of modern tractors. This is a little bit ridiculous. A tractor is an invaluable tool and there's tons of them out there that are as old as 60-70 years and still running great. You don't need a brand new GPS-guided john deere with a dealership maintainence plan to work a small ranch; $5-10k will get you something that is old, but easily maintained and will last forever.
- zhynn 3y ago
  Totally agree! And my advice is to find something in the 30hp zone. The yard tractors are not as generally useful from a mechanical advantage standpoint. Tractors aren't just "tillers and mowers". Along with levers and pulleys, the tractor can be seen as a general purpose force applicator. But it can often be better to get an older tractor, as they can be easier to repair and maintain than the newer ones.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  You don't need to go back 60-70 years to the bad old days of 9Ns with leaking carburetors, slipping clutches, and transmission-driven PTOs. A 20-30 year old 4WD compact tractor with a diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, and independent, live PTO can similarly last forever and be easily maintained (as long as you don't buy a Deere).
  - theodric 3y ago
    nothing runs away with your wallet like a Deere
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  Oh I have absolutely looked for an older tractor. Finding a model with parts still somewhat easy to find limits the market, finding one that hasn't rusted out in a field for 20+ years is even harder. The only ones I found within 300 miles of us over the last 12 months were either rusted to hell, clearly lazy paint jobs covering rust, or collectors items that were restored and priced out of the market. In addition to that, old tractors aren't as capable as modern tractors and are heavy as hell. If the health of the soil is a concern it lsso not ideal to run a 3,000-7,000 pound tractor across the field regularly. Dont get me wrong, more days than not I wish we had a tractor to make certain jobs easier. I've yet to find one that fits in our budget, is clean enough to be reliable, has parts available when it breaks, and can meaningfully improve the tasks we regularly deal with. I the meantime we have a Kai truck (Japanese minitruck) that weighs next to nothing and does some serious work around here.
throwaway894345 3y ago
I'm guessing without the subsidies our food prices would go way up and we would still probably have a lot of farmers going out of business (because many farmers are dependent on international markets that they would no longer be able to compete in)? Maybe we could address food prices by expanding "food stamps" programs, but I'm not sure what kind of policy would keep small farmers in business. And I would think mandating organic, local, small scale, etc agriculture would only make food even more expensive? (I'm not inherently opposed to expensive food as long as it doesn't worsen food insecurity). I'm curious how Europe does it--do they just import their food from countries that can produce more cheaply (because of cheap cost of living / dodgy labor laws)? More expansive welfare to help people buy costlier food? Both?
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  I won't speak for Europeans, I lived there for a few years but not long enough to understand their system deeply enough. I agree though, removing subsidies would destroy many of the farms that exist today. It's a prime example of the risks of welfare programs, they are presumably all run with very good intentions but in this case the industry is so wholly dependent on the subsidies that we can't remove them. The problem there is a broken system can only be propped up so many times, and the more you pile on top of it the worse it is when it finally collapses. Hopefully people wiser than me can orchestrate a soft landing here, because I can't personally see how we safely transition our food industry off the centralized, subsidized model.
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    > It's a prime example of the risks of welfare programs, they are presumably all run with very good intentions but in this case the industry is so wholly dependent on the subsidies that we can't remove them I don't think this can reasonably be interpreted as a cautionary tale about subsidizing food prices because even if we never subsidized food production, the alternative was starvation among the poor, which seems strictly worse. Yeah, we have a system that is dependent on subsidies, but that's precisely because human beings are necessarily dependent on food. As far as I can tell, the only way to avoid both subsidies and starvation is to drastically reduce inequality. I could also believe that we shouldn't subsidize food production, but rather we should have essentially expanded food stamps--basically give poor (and maybe even middle class) people a food stipend to offset the rising food costs. > Hopefully people wiser than me can orchestrate a soft landing here, because I can't personally see how we safely transition our food industry off the centralized, subsidized model. "Centralized" just means "more efficient" and thus "lower cost". Transitioning away from that model necessarily implies higher costs, which means you need subsidies so people can still afford to eat. Moreover, I don't think you're going to transition as far away from "centralized" as people think, because most of the country doesn't have the climate and geography to support local farming at the scale required to feed people (especially along the coasts). Moreover, you're just not going to grow bananas, citrus fruit, etc at scale in northern states.
jklinger410 3y ago
> The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized and centralized food production that anyone focusing on biodiversity, sustainability, or even animal welfare can compete economically. Inflation is far beyond what most can comprehend.
bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]
User23 3y ago
> The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized and centralized food production that anyone focusing on biodiversity, sustainability, or even animal welfare can compete economically. I don’t believe this, because the Amish down the road present a living counterexample. They are not only self sufficient, but they produce a surplus of frankly superior food at competitive prices. Likewise you can get healthy and affordable (average around $3 per pound) beef from a local farmer by buying a share of a cow on the hoof and then taking your share after slaughter. The two main “catches” that come to mind are that you only get fresh food when it’s in season and you need some kind of preservation story for when it’s not. Since you admit your relative lack of expertise, I caution you against extrapolating too much from your personal anecdotes.
lifechoseme123 3y ago
"The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized and centralized food production that anyone focusing on biodiversity, sustainability, or even animal welfare can compete economically." ...Compete... With what? I don't understand what you're saying. Farms can't compete with farms? To me it seems such a statement's validity would vary wildly because the value of land relative to intentions for agriculture or conservation, is dependent on geography. It's not as though all areas receive the same subsidies or even need them. Nor do we know what subsidies or amounts are even being discussed. The whole statement just seems vague and undefined to me. Say we're discussing private real estate in the context of agriculture & ecology-- Focusing on biodiversity, for example, has a much different ROI and perspective on that ROI, on the boundaries of a national park vs in a suburban neighborhood.
balderdash 3y ago
A lot of the problem is that it is hard to compete on quality in a commodity market (even taking into account usda quality tiers). How do you convince someone to pay 2x for your beef vs the feed lot competition (especially when the steaks look pretty similar side by side in the butcher case)
bmitc 3y ago
> can compete economically I think you meant to say can't here.

lukas099 3y ago

Isn't centralized agriculture more efficient on a calories-per-acre basis? You even say that you can't raise as many cattle as industrial cattle production. Also, the more people we can feed with land in places like the US Midwest, the less land we need to use in places like the tropics which are more important from a biodiversity standpoint.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Yes but we are past the point where calory price is the problem. That's solved. Now we need better food.
- mym1990 3y ago
  A calorie is not indicative of nutrition. I can eat 10 pop tarts a day for a few bucks but it has little to no nutritional value.
  - throwaway894345 3y ago
    That's the parent's point.
SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
Centralized agriculture is not necessarily more efficient compared to localized agriculture, because centralization introduces additional machinery, transport costs, pesticide/fertilizer research/production/shipping etc etc. centralized agriculture is actually a huge resource suck compared to localized methods, which puts a huge thumb on calorie-per-acre net.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  How does labour costs compare? As in amount of living wage labour per calorie?
- lukas099 3y ago
  On the other hand, it's easy to teach a few large farmers best practices from ag and soil science. The more decentralized agriculture becomes, the more individuals have to educate themselves. Do you trust your next door neighbors to become ag scientists to be good stewards of their land?
  - Calamitous 3y ago
    > Do you trust your next door neighbors to become ag scientists to be good stewards of their land? As someone who lives in a rural/agricultural area, yes.

aquaticsunset 3y ago

I'm hoping the pendulum swings back toward the middle of things. A huge push for centralization and subsidization was to ensure domestic food security. Famine or blight in one region? Overproduce a bit in another and ship it to those people. But somewhere along the way it flew way, way past that and created a huge opportunity for business profit. Excess production with subsidies...

pokeymcsnatch 3y ago

> We don't even own a tractor because it's not economically viable to take on the upfront or maintenance costs of modern tractors. This is a little bit ridiculous. A tractor is an invaluable tool and there's tons of them out there that are as old as 60-70 years and still running great. You don't need a brand new GPS-guided john deere with a dealership maintainence plan to work a small ranch; $5-10k will get you something that is old, but easily maintained and will last forever.

zhynn 3y ago
Totally agree! And my advice is to find something in the 30hp zone. The yard tractors are not as generally useful from a mechanical advantage standpoint. Tractors aren't just "tillers and mowers". Along with levers and pulleys, the tractor can be seen as a general purpose force applicator. But it can often be better to get an older tractor, as they can be easier to repair and maintain than the newer ones.
LeifCarrotson 3y ago
You don't need to go back 60-70 years to the bad old days of 9Ns with leaking carburetors, slipping clutches, and transmission-driven PTOs. A 20-30 year old 4WD compact tractor with a diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, and independent, live PTO can similarly last forever and be easily maintained (as long as you don't buy a Deere).
- theodric 3y ago
  nothing runs away with your wallet like a Deere
flagrant_taco 3y ago
Oh I have absolutely looked for an older tractor. Finding a model with parts still somewhat easy to find limits the market, finding one that hasn't rusted out in a field for 20+ years is even harder. The only ones I found within 300 miles of us over the last 12 months were either rusted to hell, clearly lazy paint jobs covering rust, or collectors items that were restored and priced out of the market. In addition to that, old tractors aren't as capable as modern tractors and are heavy as hell. If the health of the soil is a concern it lsso not ideal to run a 3,000-7,000 pound tractor across the field regularly. Dont get me wrong, more days than not I wish we had a tractor to make certain jobs easier. I've yet to find one that fits in our budget, is clean enough to be reliable, has parts available when it breaks, and can meaningfully improve the tasks we regularly deal with. I the meantime we have a Kai truck (Japanese minitruck) that weighs next to nothing and does some serious work around here.

throwaway894345 3y ago

I'm guessing without the subsidies our food prices would go way up and we would still probably have a lot of farmers going out of business (because many farmers are dependent on international markets that they would no longer be able to compete in)? Maybe we could address food prices by expanding "food stamps" programs, but I'm not sure what kind of policy would keep small farmers in business. And I would think mandating organic, local, small scale, etc agriculture would only make food even more expensive? (I'm not inherently opposed to expensive food as long as it doesn't worsen food insecurity). I'm curious how Europe does it--do they just import their food from countries that can produce more cheaply (because of cheap cost of living / dodgy labor laws)? More expansive welfare to help people buy costlier food? Both?

flagrant_taco 3y ago
I won't speak for Europeans, I lived there for a few years but not long enough to understand their system deeply enough. I agree though, removing subsidies would destroy many of the farms that exist today. It's a prime example of the risks of welfare programs, they are presumably all run with very good intentions but in this case the industry is so wholly dependent on the subsidies that we can't remove them. The problem there is a broken system can only be propped up so many times, and the more you pile on top of it the worse it is when it finally collapses. Hopefully people wiser than me can orchestrate a soft landing here, because I can't personally see how we safely transition our food industry off the centralized, subsidized model.
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  > It's a prime example of the risks of welfare programs, they are presumably all run with very good intentions but in this case the industry is so wholly dependent on the subsidies that we can't remove them I don't think this can reasonably be interpreted as a cautionary tale about subsidizing food prices because even if we never subsidized food production, the alternative was starvation among the poor, which seems strictly worse. Yeah, we have a system that is dependent on subsidies, but that's precisely because human beings are necessarily dependent on food. As far as I can tell, the only way to avoid both subsidies and starvation is to drastically reduce inequality. I could also believe that we shouldn't subsidize food production, but rather we should have essentially expanded food stamps--basically give poor (and maybe even middle class) people a food stipend to offset the rising food costs. > Hopefully people wiser than me can orchestrate a soft landing here, because I can't personally see how we safely transition our food industry off the centralized, subsidized model. "Centralized" just means "more efficient" and thus "lower cost". Transitioning away from that model necessarily implies higher costs, which means you need subsidies so people can still afford to eat. Moreover, I don't think you're going to transition as far away from "centralized" as people think, because most of the country doesn't have the climate and geography to support local farming at the scale required to feed people (especially along the coasts). Moreover, you're just not going to grow bananas, citrus fruit, etc at scale in northern states.

jklinger410 3y ago

bannedbybros 3y ago

[dead]

User23 3y ago

> The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized and centralized food production that anyone focusing on biodiversity, sustainability, or even animal welfare can compete economically. I don’t believe this, because the Amish down the road present a living counterexample. They are not only self sufficient, but they produce a surplus of frankly superior food at competitive prices. Likewise you can get healthy and affordable (average around $3 per pound) beef from a local farmer by buying a share of a cow on the hoof and then taking your share after slaughter. The two main “catches” that come to mind are that you only get fresh food when it’s in season and you need some kind of preservation story for when it’s not. Since you admit your relative lack of expertise, I caution you against extrapolating too much from your personal anecdotes.

lifechoseme123 3y ago

"The unfortunate truth is that we have so heavily subsidized and centralized food production that anyone focusing on biodiversity, sustainability, or even animal welfare can compete economically." ...Compete... With what? I don't understand what you're saying. Farms can't compete with farms? To me it seems such a statement's validity would vary wildly because the value of land relative to intentions for agriculture or conservation, is dependent on geography. It's not as though all areas receive the same subsidies or even need them. Nor do we know what subsidies or amounts are even being discussed. The whole statement just seems vague and undefined to me. Say we're discussing private real estate in the context of agriculture & ecology-- Focusing on biodiversity, for example, has a much different ROI and perspective on that ROI, on the boundaries of a national park vs in a suburban neighborhood.

balderdash 3y ago

A lot of the problem is that it is hard to compete on quality in a commodity market (even taking into account usda quality tiers). How do you convince someone to pay 2x for your beef vs the feed lot competition (especially when the steaks look pretty similar side by side in the butcher case)

bmitc 3y ago

> can compete economically I think you meant to say can't here.