Comments on: Farming in an Equilibrium Trap

By: procopius

procopius — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:17:15 +0000

You’d have to distinguish farming from modern farming. Modern farmers often get paid not to plant. Modern farmers, mostly, either have family capital gain through generations, or, others are debutantes that had capital when buying the land and everything else. Others are corporate entities.

Oddly, small time farmers can fly under the radar, grow a little of high value crop, and make money selling it firsthand. This relatively new, and that’s why all the new laws are cracking down on small scale cultivation.

By: Greg H

Greg H — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:08:47 +0000

>What do you believe would happen to food prices if the government stopped subsidizing agriculture?

First, many of the “non-viable” farms would go out of business. Nearby “viable” farms would buy up most of their land and farm it, so very little of it would go out of production. Probably there would very, very little difference in crop production due to this because new farmers would increase yields compared to before, making up for any newly idle land.

Second, a fair number of farmers would switch crops — as a made-up example, without a subsidy for soft white wheat it might be more profitable to plant hard red wheat, or barley or peas or whatever. But with less soft white wheat being produced, demand would drive up the price a little. These two effects would balance out at some point — the market price, undistorted by subsidies. That price might be higher than the current price, or it might not, because…

Third, subsidies are not this simple! For example, many farmers are paid not to farm some of their land. Without that payment, they would probably farm that land. This would tend to drive up production and drive down prices.

But there are many, many other programs that affect farmers and farming. “Off-road” diesel is not taxed. Transportation and storage subsidized. Foreign markets are opened, closed, or deals are brokered by the government. Etc, etc, etc. Are these considered “farm subsidies”? Even if “subsidies” were eliminated, we would be quite far from a free market in farming.

By: Stephen Littau

Stephen Littau — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:19:32 +0000

Chris:

What do you believe would happen to food prices if the government stopped subsidizing agriculture?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:05:34 +0000

Mingo, I absolutely and entirely agree.

There are MANY successful unsubsidized farms all over this country, for basically every crop other than feed and cereal grains, cotton, dairy, peanuts, and sugar.

If people don’t want to pay the prices for unsubsidized crops… we shouldn’t be growing them.

By: MingoV

MingoV — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 21:55:29 +0000

I grew up in farm country in upstate New York south of Lake Ontario. The only subsidized or price-controlled “crop” was milk.** Everything else (chickens, apples, cherries, grapes, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, string beans, cucumbers, etc.) was raised without subsidies and sold at market prices. The successful farmers had enough cushion to handle too little rain, too much rain, hail storms, fungal or pest infestations, equipment breakdowns, etc. Many farms have been passed down to relatives for more than three generations. Their success, without government intervention, proves that family farms can survive without subsidies and price controls.

** Ironically, almost all the family dairy farms failed or switched to other crops by the mid-1970s.