Ag subsidies -- I am ashamed of my country

[JohnT]

Pchang clarifies a point I made in, oh, the VERY FIRST reply to this thread, MrFun.

Ethanol, anybody?

[MrFun]

** MrFun gives JohnT a cookie

[Theben]

DanS, why do you hate America?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

i hope brazil follows through with their threat not to honor intellectual property rights if the US and europe dont slash their agricultural subsidies

note: those stats about most subsidized countries underestimates japan, since not only do farmers get subsidies, they also have tariff barriers against imported stuff.
side note: it seems that turkey is more european then any other EU nation; they subsidize at much greater levels. i think they should be let into the EU.
side side note: in switzerland, they pay farmers to put their cows on the mountain side, so it increases the view, and the esthetic of the area.

[Atahualpa]

side side note: in switzerland, they pay farmers to put their cows on the mountain side, so it increases the view, and the esthetic of the area.

wtg switzerland

[pchang]

at Swiss aesthetics. I think mountain sides look better sans cows. They would be much better off paying their farmers to put their pretty daughters on the mountainsides in bikinis.

[BlackCat]

And maybe some haystacks

[Agathon]

I'm in favour of the US government subsidizing me. Where do I pick up the check?

[Provost Harrison]

Silver subsidies?

[Atahualpa]

I think you have to go to Redmond

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Colon

Let me praise Blair dammit.

Blair does deserve prais for his insisting that if the EU budget is to be revised then CAP must be part of that revision. Chirac was unhappy about that but Blair was right to do so.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

it seems like the french are the biggest blockers of EU reform. and Shroeder goes along with him. (but ibet if you cut off chirac, shroeder wont be as combative, or uncompromising)

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Agathon
I'm in favour of the US government subsidizing me. Where do I pick up the check?

move here and get to work not growing food

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Atahualpa

Anyway, you cannot take their subsidies from one day to the other... you will artificially create a crisis that nobody needs. Things are going to need to change, but I am for a goal and an aim instead of some radical, greedy actions that make absolutely no sense.

Radical greedy action? Are you implying that having farmers actually pay their own way and justify their existance is radical and greedy? EVERYONE ELSE, bar jumbo jet makers & certain automakers, must pay their own way without massive handouts from the tax payers. If anyone here is greedy then it is the fat cat farmer who has a net worth of hundreds of thousands if not millions yet demands people give him money to not farm. Give me money or... I'll actually get off my ass and do some work!

The truth is these subsidies have massively distorted the market realities and have lead to over production of every agricultural good imaginable. Quality is extremely high yet people don't buy enough of this food (even with our society growing fatter by the day) in order to justify these levels of production. If people demand organic food then great; there will be farmers willing to accept the lower farm yields in order to get the higher prices organic foods cost. Either way there is no reason why the government should be paying 300% of market rate for goods that end up being destroyed because there is no demand for them.

Greedy and radical indeed!

[Dinner]

Re: Re: Re: Ag subsidies -- I am ashamed of my country

Originally posted by pchang

This is corporate welfare. The vast majority of this money goes to agribusiness, not small family farmers.

Yeah, that is a well documented fact. ADM and Con-Agra along with their EU and Japanese equivalants suck up most of the subsidies while the over production still lowers prices and forces small inefficent producers out of business. The end result is massive corporate owned farms get huge cash handouts and the family farmer still go out of business.

If we could at least cut the corporate farms off and only give subsidies to family farms then that would be a huge improvement but family farms don't pay politicians off like massive multinational corporations do so that's not likely to change. The subsidies harm consumers, they harm tax payers, and they are killing the worlds nonsubsidized farmers. We need fair trade where tax payer money stops being flushed down the toilet and where price controls & protectionism aren't used to jack up prices. The hundreds of billions of Euros/Dollars which are wasted on farm subsidies can instead be used for economically useful activities like education or infastruction. Study after study have shown that every dollar we eliminate in subsidies and redirect else were develops $2 of economic activity. We come out ahead as a group even if greedy farm corporations are forced to compete.