The only decent argument I have heard for U.S. farm subsidies is national security. If we were to allow most of our food supply to be imported, then it would be a weakness for the country in a wartime scenario.
I also think this is BS and this isn't the Cold War anymore, but it is the only reasonable argument I've found.
I don't like that argument. By that logic, we shouldn't import microprocessors, steel, oil, or a hundred other things, either. However, that makes little economic sense. In addition, the United States is an ally of most of the rest of the world, so the chances that we will ever be cut off from all food sources is negligible, unless higher-ups in the government were planning to start a war with the entire planet (which seems possible lately).
Also, the government isn't subsidizing farms to bring up our agricultural production to national self-sufficiency levels, but it is massively subsidizing them to make the US a huge food exporting country. Our farm policy doesn't fit the pattern of a program that has been logically designed for a purpose. Rather, it fits the pattern of entrenched producers influencing legislation for their own gain.
The way modern farming works, it's not very easy/quick to rapidly expand farming into non-farming lands. Farming takes expertise, infrastructure, equipment, labor, and a fair amount of biological systems to work together. The idea of the dumb hick farmer is popular, but not entirely accurate.
War isn't the only reason it's bad to get most of our food supply from other countries, though it is a pretty good one and it can be hard to tell in advance when war is going to break out.
Food is the foundation of any population of people. Without it, even more so than oil, people start dying. What farm subsidies do is keep farming profitable enough so that there is a surplus of food every year. If for some reason yields are low we simply have a smaller surplus instead of being required to look elsewhere for food.
I can't cite my sources, but I've heard a compelling argument that most/all great empire collapses happen during times of drought or famine. This isn't to say that drought or famine are sufficient or even required for a collapse, but it sure helps.
Also, all it can take is one bad year (without subsidies) for an independent farmer to go under. Farming is very expensive. The equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and property taxes on 100k+ acres of land is a lot of money.
The way modern farming works is that huge corporate farms open up lobbying offices on K street, which they use to get politicians to increase their subsidies year after year until the payments are larger than any logical purpose could justify. When the production subsidies get too large and environmentalists start to complain about all the marginal land that is being converted to farm land, the farming industry gets the government to pay them to leave acres alone as well.
Fly over a desert state and you will see occasional large patches of green. Those patches of green are farms that are phenomenally expensive and resource intensive to produce, but the subsidies make it worthwhile. Some of the fallow land you see is also owned by the farms and they are being paid by the government to leave it alone.
Whether agricultural giants are being paid to farm or not farm, taxpayers foot the bill, of course. To keep them from getting upset, politicians from farm states blow patriotic smoke about how important farms are for a nation.
>Also, all it can take is one bad year (without subsidies) for an independent farmer to go under.
In the old days, this is what crop insurance and futures contracts were for. Crop markets were the original source of many financial innovations that were meant to lessen the risk of participating in a volatile industry. Now I suppose that it is the government's job to guarantee people's livelihoods.
Software startups are a very volatile industry as well. Should the government start subsidizing them to keep them from going under? Perhaps it could start with 10 cents per year per line of code written. The first bill will cost $50 billion/year and most of the subsidy will go to Microsoft. After all, we can't allow our software industry to go overseas in case war breaks out. We need American programmers available to write guidance programs for our satellites, unmanned drones, and missiles.
Now I just need to switch my startup from Ruby to something more verbose to rake in those LOC subsidies.
I don't think the argument is that the current system of subsidies is well organised. It is simply that the over-production of food probably has some significant national security advantages. Running out of food is even worse than running out of oil, steal or microprocessors.
This would only be likely happen in a wartime scenario and it would force you to invade another nation to secure access to food or surrender. Having to do this (invade) when you are already obviously streched to the limit would be a significant disadvantage.
I don't think so. I think it is tolerance of inanity.
Once you get used to it (as Reddit has), vapid comments and submissions begin to look normal, and so does the lowered overall level of thought.
This place has held up pretty well though, because it isn't so tolerant. Tell too many jokes and watch the downmods pile... down.
We currently pay less for our food as a percentage of income than any other nation in the world, so despite his belief that farmed subsidies are not worthwhile we're doing pretty well.
Many times in our history the government has interceded when farm prices grew too high so most in agriculture believe that it has an obligation to help when prices are low. Having watched these cycles closely for over 30 years if you believe that the policy makers can remove themselves entirely from agriculture you're naive.
The American people have been pretty supportive of farmers and indeed farmers poll much higher than the president or congress.
Despite only being four percent of the population agriculture is extemely competitive. It is also the only industry where you buy retail and sell wholesale. If you totally eliminated farm subsidies you would spur an even higher concentration in agriculture. Things would reach a tipping point where farmers would organize into labor unions or price setting cartels. If that happens OPEC wouldn't be the only cartel we'd have to worry about.
I also think this is BS and this isn't the Cold War anymore, but it is the only reasonable argument I've found.