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> 4. The grain industry must diversify. Since these folks by and large do not grow food for people in America to eat, just how important is this to Americans w

by runako 1y ago

> 4. The grain industry must diversify. Since these folks by and large do not grow food for people in America to eat, just how important is this to Americans who do not work in ag? Why do we subsidize farmers to produce products for export? Why do we not do that for other industries? Two things are true: farming is very hard & a certain set of rich[1] family farmers are coddled. 1 - Chappell, the farmer in the lede, grows 2,400 acres on an 8,000 acre family farm. That's about $5m of land under cultivation on a farm potentially worth near $20 million. This is the type of farmer we are bailing out. This farmer, who is richer than 99% of Americans, and those like him.

DrewADesign 1y ago
Well strategically in an economic SHTF situation at least we could theoretically feed our populace with the surplus. But we all know that realistically, at this point, the people in charge would just sell it for a pittance or dump it to manipulate market prices even if 70% of the country was starving— because this is the kind of society we’ve all created.
- runako 1y ago
  I hear the argument that food is different, I do. What I don't get is why any of us should care _which_ millionaire owns & operates the farm. If one millionaire isn't scaled enough to run it at a profit and has to sell to a richer millionaire or corporation, don't we still have the same net SHTF outcome?
  - FollowingTheDao 1y ago
    Maybe we should nationalize farms so no one has to be hungry?
    - binary132 1y ago
      subsidizing businesses that are trapped in that role is essentially not that different from a nationalized or otherwise centrally planned industry
      - runako 1y ago
        > businesses that are trapped in that role None of them are trapped, there are bigger buyers that have capital and are willing to take them out. We don't have to subsidize millionaires with our taxes, especially if they don't want the subsidies!
  - DrewADesign 1y ago
    Yeah, I’m saying that theoretically it’s a good idea because it’s food. However, that doesn’t matter because we as a society decided that our food supply is less important for feeding people than as money plumbing for rich people. The money plumbing is supposed to get the food created and allocated as efficiently as possible by rewarding innovation and competition among food businesses; unfortunately, in many instances, efficiency and innovation in plumbing hacking is as profitable or more profitable than being better food producers. The subsidies would be fine if they were helping farmers working in good faith efficiently produce food for people to eat.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
SpicyUme 1y ago
If we develop all agricultural land while chasing dollars it cannot end well. Of course we won't develop everything, but I'm not sure the monetary value of the land adequately prices the value of being able to grow crops. I won't pretend to have a plan, but watching very productive cropland get converted into lawns and warehouses makes me leery of how ag land is dealt with.
- runako 1y ago
  Here, we are basically talking about people who grow export products, not food eaten by Americans. My understanding is we could take most of these farms completely offline without much impact to US food supply (I could be wrong on this). There appears to be a dichotomy right now between commodity farmers whose export markets have collapsed due to national policy and those who grow food for American consumption, who are not having that problem. I'm trying to gauge how important the former is to those of us who do not work on those farms.
  - throwup238 1y ago
    Only about 20% of corn and 40-45% of wheat is exported. Since a lot of the rest goes to animal feed either directly or as distillers grains (waste product from ethanol/biofuel production that is still edible), it could definitely impact food security here in the US. The complicating factor is that those grains are the feed for the last stage in beef production, with about half of all US agricultural land going to pasture for the previous stage. Eliminating those grains could significantly impact how much food the rest of the land can actually produce.
    - runako 1y ago
      Those are big percentages of export. You also raise the point that there are other categories of domestic use that also are not food (distillation, biofuels). But again, we're not necessarily talking about farms literally closing. This is mostly about which rich person gets to operate a given plot of land. If a farmer goes under and sells to another farmer, at the margin why should we care? I still have yet to see a good answer as to why we should care which millionaire operates these farms.
harimau777 1y ago
To a certain degree, isn't diversifying kind of antithetical to the niche grain serves? That is to say, it seems like the whole role of grains is to be a fairly generic source of starch. I'm not sure that you could diversify much while still serving that role.
- runako 1y ago
  Point taken. I think the "grain industry" has that problem, but no individual farmer is duty-bound to go 100% on grain for export every year. For example, they could grow grain crops intended for consumption in the US as a hedge against the (predictable) disruption in export markets.

by runako 1y ago

DrewADesign 1y ago

Well strategically in an economic SHTF situation at least we could theoretically feed our populace with the surplus. But we all know that realistically, at this point, the people in charge would just sell it for a pittance or dump it to manipulate market prices even if 70% of the country was starving— because this is the kind of society we’ve all created.

runako 1y ago
I hear the argument that food is different, I do. What I don't get is why any of us should care _which_ millionaire owns & operates the farm. If one millionaire isn't scaled enough to run it at a profit and has to sell to a richer millionaire or corporation, don't we still have the same net SHTF outcome?
- FollowingTheDao 1y ago
  Maybe we should nationalize farms so no one has to be hungry?
  - binary132 1y ago
    subsidizing businesses that are trapped in that role is essentially not that different from a nationalized or otherwise centrally planned industry
    - runako 1y ago
      > businesses that are trapped in that role None of them are trapped, there are bigger buyers that have capital and are willing to take them out. We don't have to subsidize millionaires with our taxes, especially if they don't want the subsidies!
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  Yeah, I’m saying that theoretically it’s a good idea because it’s food. However, that doesn’t matter because we as a society decided that our food supply is less important for feeding people than as money plumbing for rich people. The money plumbing is supposed to get the food created and allocated as efficiently as possible by rewarding innovation and competition among food businesses; unfortunately, in many instances, efficiency and innovation in plumbing hacking is as profitable or more profitable than being better food producers. The subsidies would be fine if they were helping farmers working in good faith efficiently produce food for people to eat.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

SpicyUme 1y ago

If we develop all agricultural land while chasing dollars it cannot end well. Of course we won't develop everything, but I'm not sure the monetary value of the land adequately prices the value of being able to grow crops. I won't pretend to have a plan, but watching very productive cropland get converted into lawns and warehouses makes me leery of how ag land is dealt with.

runako 1y ago
Here, we are basically talking about people who grow export products, not food eaten by Americans. My understanding is we could take most of these farms completely offline without much impact to US food supply (I could be wrong on this). There appears to be a dichotomy right now between commodity farmers whose export markets have collapsed due to national policy and those who grow food for American consumption, who are not having that problem. I'm trying to gauge how important the former is to those of us who do not work on those farms.
- throwup238 1y ago
  Only about 20% of corn and 40-45% of wheat is exported. Since a lot of the rest goes to animal feed either directly or as distillers grains (waste product from ethanol/biofuel production that is still edible), it could definitely impact food security here in the US. The complicating factor is that those grains are the feed for the last stage in beef production, with about half of all US agricultural land going to pasture for the previous stage. Eliminating those grains could significantly impact how much food the rest of the land can actually produce.
  - runako 1y ago
    Those are big percentages of export. You also raise the point that there are other categories of domestic use that also are not food (distillation, biofuels). But again, we're not necessarily talking about farms literally closing. This is mostly about which rich person gets to operate a given plot of land. If a farmer goes under and sells to another farmer, at the margin why should we care? I still have yet to see a good answer as to why we should care which millionaire operates these farms.

harimau777 1y ago

To a certain degree, isn't diversifying kind of antithetical to the niche grain serves? That is to say, it seems like the whole role of grains is to be a fairly generic source of starch. I'm not sure that you could diversify much while still serving that role.

runako 1y ago
Point taken. I think the "grain industry" has that problem, but no individual farmer is duty-bound to go 100% on grain for export every year. For example, they could grow grain crops intended for consumption in the US as a hedge against the (predictable) disruption in export markets.