WTO makes progress in cutting farm subsidies

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Huh?

Anarchists are anti-free market?

And I wasn't aware that KH was an anarchist.

Anarchist's names always end in 'o.'

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
He's not, he's a social dem, and should also be opposed to expanding the free market.

Still, hopefully no one (except the farmers) should be for paying farmers to do useless tasks. Why do they somehow get our money? What makes them so ****ing special?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

its the electoral college in america which distorts the market that way.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Still, hopefully no one (except the farmers) should be for paying farmers to do useless tasks. Why do they somehow get our money? What makes them so ****ing special?

They own the means of production I guess.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Still, hopefully no one (except the farmers) should be for paying farmers to do useless tasks. Why do they somehow get our money? What makes them so ****ing special?

'Cos screwing Africans feels so good. Simple, really.

[Ramo]

1. Now that it will be profitable to create an agribusiness in the third world, you can expect many new agribusinesses to emerge and compete for the now-open market. This will increase production, until the market balances itself out.

2. I don't know for the US, but in Europe, agrisubsidies come along with production quotas. That's because the EU tries for a long time not to contribute to the fall of world food prices. The more we produce, the lower the overall prices, and the more the EU must pay for subsidies, so it's a sound plan.
Should we remove the agrisubsidies, these production quotas will have no reason to exist anymore. Agribusinesses and family farmers alike won't show restraint in their production. They'll produce with even more heart that their profit per unit will freefall, and they'll try to make up for the loss by selling more units.

Don't these two claims contradict each other? If the West produces more, there wouldn't be an open market for third world agribusiness to pick up the slack; if the third world produces more, the prices would be too low for a lot of unsubsidized agribusiness to be very profitable.

[Japher]

Food is a necessity. If the consumers aren't calling for product A one year the gov. will put a subsidy of X amount on it for that year because the demand may be up for it next year. It costs money to plant these foods and a farmer nor an industry can't predict the future any better than you or I can. Should the farmer bear the cost of a product that is not bought but will have demand for in the future? If that is the case a farmer will be in and out of bankruptcy on a early basis. Not to mention if the farmer is growing vines or orchard products which costs lots of money to plant and takes several years to produce anything... All because something doesn't sell at this time doesn't mean that it won't be needed in the future.

Table grapes have been that way recently. Over the past few years the sales have been awful, mainly because of a flooding of the market by large producers. The smaller farmers had to sell for cost, but are now looking at profits for next year for the first time in 2 or 3 years. What if it were worse? All these farmers going out of buisness, and then if demand pops back up (like it always does) and there is no food to be had we are screwed... Throw into this competition from foreign markets that have the added threats of tarrifs, non-FDA/USDA regulations, unstable governments, and long transportation requirements and you will definitly see problems.

[Last Conformist]

If demand is unstable, they'll have to have sufficient capital reserves to handle the lows. The costs will, in the end, be passed on to consumers.

[Japher]

If demand is unstable, they'll have to have sufficient capital reserves to handle the lows. The costs will, in the end, be passed on to consumers.

So there will be, in an effect, world ag-subsidies...

Not to mention that supply may be unstable if food supply is intrusted to 3rd world countries that are already ran by greedy facist dictators.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
If demand is unstable, they'll have to have sufficient capital reserves to handle the lows. The costs will, in the end, be passed on to consumers.

That just doesn't make things stable. Farmers still go bankrupt more often. Why would we want our farmers going bankrupt now when the price of food is predicted to go up over the next 40 years.

[Last Conformist]

So there will be, in an effect, world ag-subsidies...

If you see the workings of a free market as subsidies, sure.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ramo
Don't these two claims contradict each other? If the West produces more, there wouldn't be an open market for third world agribusiness to pick up the slack; if the third world produces more, the prices would be too low for a lot of unsubsidized agribusiness to be very profitable.

The new companies won't open to "pick up the slack". They'll open because they'll think they can corner the market by having lower prices.

This will very rapidly result in the freefall of food prices. The western agriculture will react in two different ways:
- family farmers will see their production costs definitely higher than the market price. Most of them will have no way to lower their production costs enough to match the market price. They'll be put on the dole.
Those family farmers whose production is still cheaper than the market price will increase their production as much as they can, to try keeping the same overall profit.

- agribusinesses will still have their production costs lower than market price (because the human costs are proportionally much, much lower in an agribusiness than in a family farm), and they'll also produce more in order to keep the same overall profit, after the freefall of profit per unit.

What I describe is a common crisis of excessive supply. They happen all the time in unregulated markets, so I don't see what is contradictory with it.

This would be contradictory only if you believe that businesses only open to satisfy an unsatified demand. This is not true: businesses can open in order to make profit by being more competitive than others in an already satisfied market. Third world agribusinesses will definitely believe they can take the market from western hands, and they'll probably be right.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

i agree - family farms in the first world will undoubteldy go out of business, saying conisumers millions of dollars. many agri businesses will have to move to third world countries in order to keep production costs down (lower wage workers.) since its cheaper in third world countries to hire 1000 laboreres instead of using machines, unemployment in those countries will decrease, and eventually wages will increase, bringing them out of poverty.

[Sandman]

Tch. I hope you commies know that your attitude is totally at odds with any sort of Marxism.

These farmers are nothing more than monarchs of the countryside. They've developed a complex web of myths to snare you into thinking that they're somehow worth propping up with taxpayer's cash, just like any royal family.

And it is most certainly not the case that Western agribusinesses will somehow magically become super-efficient overnight, after being fattened for years and years. Apart from anything else, there are crops which simply should not be grown in the West - sugar and cotton, for example. No amount of mechanisation can make Texas competitive with Burkina Faso when it comes to cotton. The climate is simply so much better there. It's the same with sugar beet from East Anglia versus sugar cane from the Third World. There's no competition.

[Spiffor]

Indeed, Sandman, and the third world countries will continue to produce these cash crops. I thought we were talking about food here however. Are the Burkinabe markets flooded with American cotton, or corn? Are they flooded by European sugar, or wheat products?