Stan,
>We force Haitians to sell their
>rice--which they grow enough of to feed their entire population--as an
>export product, then sell them subsidized US rice at anoutrageously
>unaffordable price.
The same product??? This is not that characteristic of imperialism. Usually the
trade is about different products, which makes it easier to "manage" it tightly. How
are Haitians forced to sell and they to buy more expensive rice? (Excuse my
ignorance of imperialist innovations.)
Tom,
Of course I count the subsidy. Exactly like I would count a tax on petrochemicals or
whatever. Doing otherwise is doing the theology of a Market cult! I'm not suggesting
that farmers would go out of business because they are digusted of benefitting from
subsidies! Maybe very few would, but that's not the point. Plus, some ag guys are
probably only able to stay in business because of subsidies.
In Europe, a sizable amount of land gets *abandonned* (or at least used to until a
few years back). For farmers to produce at a loss for years they need money!
Who's gonna give it to them? If they sold stuff on the Internet at a loss, there would
be venture capitalists to keep them in business, but in farming, I guess not. That's
market forces dealing with a price too low + productivist subsidies. And probably
also the effect of industrial agriculture on the soil. In some countries, there are
extra
subsidies for the less profitable types of land in order to deal with this.
Also, I didn't talk about that because I didn't want to go into the details at first,
but in
some cases, the state also intervenes and orders food to be abandonned on the
field in order to sustain the prices.
The result of all this? If demand would go up, food production would also go up.
And unless the state intervenes, if demand goes down, food production will follow.
I'm not suggesting that there are no limits (of course there are), but that we are far
from producing as much food as we can (at least in Europe). If you add up
unnecessary food consumption, waste, stuff abandonned because it doesn't fit with
the "quality" that supermarkets want, stuff destroyed when it is out of date when it's
not or when it could have been avoided by stuffing the shelves less, etc. you get the
picture of a specie which could currently fit more individuals than it does in its
"niche".
>PS Right now if you look at all those thousands of US/Canadian failed family
>farms, the fate of the farm itself falls into three categories, two of which
>support what I said, Julien.
>
>1) A big ag guy buys them up. (Market forces prevail)
>
>2) Another family member takes over and runs the farm at a loss, keeping the
>old folks in the farm house, and "maintaining a tradition". (Market forces
>irrelevent, unless you count the "subsidy".)
>
>3) A neighbor takes over cultivation and invests in another growing season.
>It fails, another takes over, it fails. Another takes over, it fails.
>Another takes over, it fails. Another takes over, it fails. (Resulting in a
>farm that serially produces crops at a consistent loss every growing season,
>with the [aggregate] farmer continually making the decison to grow at a
>loss.) Rarely does the farmland quit producing SOMETHING to eat.
Excuse me... What does the last sentence mean?
Julien
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