On Sep 19, 2008, at 7:38 PM, Euan Ritchie wrote: >> Farm subsidies are there basically to prevent the collapse of the >> farm >> industry and keep farmers in business, because the farming business >> is >> so economically anomalous the normal economic rules don't apply to it >> very well at all. And we are talking about our *food supply* here .. > > The standard rational one always hears - supporting farmers is > supporting food security. But it generally isn't true because a vast > proportion of farm subsidies do not actively support the growing of > staple crops but merely the corporate profits of companies. [...]
And large corporate factory farms have been gaming the subsidy system for quite some time. More an unintended consequence of trying to help the smaller farmers (who used to be the average or larger scale farmers before farm subsidies were part of the equation) get ahead of the Catch-22 of larger crops bringing less at the market because they skew the supply/demand balance, and about a hundred other can't-win- for-losing little gotchas in the farm business. And yes, industrial- scale corporate/factory farming smelled a sweet deal and muscled in to cash in on it, and in that sense, yes, it's become a form of corporate welfare. Doesn't change the fact that when you turn farmers loose and try to hold them accountable to economic theories that don't take the reality of farming into account, to sink or swim on their own, more often than not, they sink. "No, I'm disagreeing with you. That doesn't mean I'm not listening to you or understanding what you're saying. I'm doing all three at the same time." -- Toby Ziegler _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
