1) Besides those that directly benefit from these economically, who supports them? There seems to be near-universal agreement that they're unhealthy, distort trade, and actually only help a few very powerful big farmers, and hurt any small competition that tries to spring up.
2) Seriously... how are subsidies legal, anyway? Where in the Constitution did Congress get the right to take taxpayer money and give it to private businesses? That seems sort of blatantly rife with corruption.
Without the agricultural subsidies, you'd have to pay a huge sum of money for everything which is grown on the farms. Farming is an expensive business.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Would we? Price floors are included in subsidy packages, and half the current food price increase is caused by the use of inefficient corn ethanol due to the distortion of farm subsidies. All farm subsidies seem to do is to punish farmers in third world countries, slowing or preventing their ascension to industrialization and harming and warping the World's economy. Farming seems to be an expensive business largely because we pay for it twice.
Without the agricultural subsidies, you'd have to pay a huge sum of money for everything which is grown on the farms. Farming is an expensive business.
That then also means that WITH agricultural subsidies we have to pay a huge sum of money for everything grown on a farm. The money has to come from someone, and who do you think that is?
The only difference is that with subsidies the streamlining effect of free trade isn't allowed to increase efficiency and productivity, meaning that America as a whole spends more to get the same amount of crop.
In NZ, we got rid of farm subsidies back in the eighties (incidentally this was part of a disastrous experiment into extreme free-market economics, but it seems every cloud has a silver lining) and since then farming regions have become more prosperous and farmers are now more prepared to plant the right crops rather than the ones which get the subsidies, which is obviously more efficient and better for everyone. Removing subsidies is probably up there with refrigerated ships and kiwifruit in terms of things that have been good for New Zealand agriculture.
To me, farm subsidies are inexcusable and unjustifiable.
Another issue with the subsidies that you don't hear many discussing is that the vast majority of them go towards producing artificial, processed, imitation foods from that bag of potato chips sitting on the supermarket shelf to the loaf of spineless (meaning that it's lost its crust almost completely) bread juiced-up with high-fructose corn syrup and "nutrients".
Hmm...I think I'll start another thread in here soon focusing on American food culture. That should be interesting.
The funny thing about farm subsidies is that, really, no ideology should support them. Liberals should hate them because they distort the market like any subsidy, and for that matter they distort it in favour of massive factory farming at the expense of independent and third world farmers. And conservatives should hate them because they cost a ton of money for questionable gains. I'm pretty sure even the NDP, Canada's socialist party, opposes them.
And yet whenever they get into power, they all keep them up or increase them. It's a bizzare side-effect of federalism, I suppose. Though that doesn't explain other countries like France, but their reasons are pretty clear as well.
2) Seriously... how are subsidies legal, anyway? Where in the Constitution did Congress get the right to take taxpayer money and give it to private businesses? That seems sort of blatantly rife with corruption.
Does it have to be said in the Constitution to be legal? There's nothing in the Constitution about bipartisan politicians or presidential primaries but they still exist. Congress has been giving money to random sources from the beginning of its existence. I don't believe it says anywhere in the Constitution that it's legal to give any money to any one (though, that members of the government were to receive salaries was implied). With that said, the same logic could be used to take down social security and food stamps... both of which I really want gone. So you give some, you take some... I believe the Constitution actually supported "implied powers".
The argument for subsidies keeping prices down comes from their original intent - preserving farmland. Subsidies were instituted in response to crushing feast-famine cycles. These cycles were eliminating the profitability of small farms due to the possibility of having to sell your crop at below cost during a glut. Farmland started to get converted to other uses. Less farmland means higher prices in the long run. Of course with modern large scale farms with huge capitalization, the subsidies are no longer useful and are in fact harmful. But they served a purpose once.
Does it have to be said in the Constitution to be legal? There's nothing in the Constitution about bipartisan politicians or presidential primaries but they still exist.
Those are systems, not actual powers. To answer your congress, yes, it does. Congress cannot simply grant itself powers. For obvious reasons.
Those are systems, not actual powers. To answer your congress, yes, it does. Congress cannot simply grant itself powers. For obvious reasons.
I'd say the Taxing and Spending Clause would probably be used as justification for subsidies, particularly the contained General Welfare Clause. Is there anything the General Welfare Clause can't reasonably justify?
Commodities speculation and farm subsidies seem to go hand in hand...time to uncouple the handicapping and the actual performance, because either way the family farmers lose out.
Farm subsidies should become less necessary and be phased out, along with re-regulation of commodities investment. You should NOT be able to get a fat subsidy for growing soybean when it is clearly in excess but has driven up price due to speculation.
The reason why farm subsidies were implemented are the same as why the US government is going to bail out the housing market and why it's keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in business. It has been decided that letting these people/organizations go bankrupt would be much more disastrous to the nation then the cost of keeping them afloat.
There is also a strategic element to keeping local industries afloat artificially when they cannot compete with imports. If your local producers go out of business, you become dependant on those imports. It's why there is so much lobbying going on for the US to drill for more oil locally. It might not necessarily be cheaper but it could potentially lower the dependance on foreign oil.
I swear, TIBA, you read my mind. I was just thinking that we needed something on the front page other than the perpetual presidential drama and bickering about teh gays.
Well, since most everyone agrees that farm subsidies are bad, how should we go about removing them? The current subsidy-fueled factory farm system isn't going to just magically adjust to a truly spectacular change in its business model if subsidies are cut, and particularly when commodity prices are so high, the price shocks that would result are unacceptable. (Never mind that the structure of the Senate gives agricultural states a huge advantage in keeping subsidies alive. If you want subsidies to go away, you're going to have to make the residents of Kansas et al. want to get rid of them.)
Even if you're willing to disregard the effects on consumers, you have to consider the vast change this would probably effect on the American countryside. Assume that the end of subsidies destroys the factory farm system and necessitates the return of family farms as our primary method of food production. Do Americans really want to be farmers anymore? If you want family farms to replace the agricultural factories, you're going to have to convince a lot of people to move back to the countryside and forgo what remains attractive in city and suburban life, not to mention reconstructing entire rural communities and networks of transportation.
None of this is intended to argue against the removal of subsidies - they promote the most inefficient, lumbering, and environmentally destructive agricultural sector the world has ever known. I do think, though, that there are a lot of factors to be considered. Thoughts?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I hide myself within my flower
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
Even if you're willing to disregard the effects on consumers, you have to consider the vast change this would probably effect on the American countryside. Assume that the end of subsidies destroys the factory farm system and necessitates the return of family farms as our primary method of food production. Do Americans really want to be farmers anymore? If you want family farms to replace the agricultural factories, you're going to have to convince a lot of people to move back to the countryside and forgo what remains attractive in city and suburban life, not to mention reconstructing entire rural communities and networks of transportation.
I really do not see how the removal of subsidies is going to revert the US agriculture sector back to family farms. I would think that it would actually promote the growth of bigger more efficient factory farms. If the farms have to survive based purely on what they can sell their crops for then the most productive, most cost-effective ones are going to be the ones surviving.
Yeah, lack of subsidies should produce more efficiency, not less. I really don't think a scale-down is needed, but it could be as simple as half the subsidies for the next two years, then eliminate them on the third. And eliminate the price floor and other special policies.
Do Americans really want to be farmers anymore? If you want family farms to replace the agricultural factories, you're going to have to convince a lot of people to move back to the countryside and forgo what remains attractive in city and suburban life, not to mention reconstructing entire rural communities and networks of transportation.
I can think of several people in my immediate family who would jump at the chance to buy back our family's land and start farming it again. Sure I would like to see an America where you don't absolutely have to sell your land at a severe discount and move to a big city because of one bad year, but more importantly one in which bright, ambitious young people can stay in their communities where they were raised, and continue working the land their family has cared for for generations, and still make a decent living.
As for networks and transportation, and I'll add access to health care and educational opportunities here because it is germane, we've come a long way since the interstates were first built. Internet access, wireless phone service, telemedicine, regional power initiatives, distance learning and credentialing, all of these help modern farmers gain access to a fair standard for education, business services, health care, and communication.
In fact, factory farming is a suboptimal model in an unsubsidized and therefore internally sustainable agricultural industry. To maximize efficiency, factory farms are highly specialized for production and processing of one or a few types of crops. A drop in the price of that monoculture, or a severe drought or poor season, will hurt all farmers, but especially if they are not drawing on a diversified yield. Factory farms survive such odd and shortsighted problems by dint of being able to draw on a lot of cash to recover, and by garnering subsidies. Taking away subsidies from farms who do not meet sufficient criteria for diversification may discourage this monoculture speculation and encourage farms of all sizes to be more self-reliant and sustainable. But any measure to reduce or eliminate farm subsidies has to come with some sort of regulation protecting commodity values. Deregulating investment and speculation has done plenty of damage. As a result, subsidy is no longer optional. It's a desperate lifeline for too many landowners, year in and year out. And that level of subsidy is breaking the system.
Yeah, lack of subsidies should produce more efficiency, not less. I really don't think a scale-down is needed, but it could be as simple as half the subsidies for the next two years, then eliminate them on the third. And eliminate the price floor and other special policies.
You're certainly correct about the efficiency, but I might disagree with you about the necessity of a scale-down. Given that it takes time for any company, let alone one as overspecialized and hulking as a factory farm, to change its way of doing business, you're not going to see an immediate gain in efficiency after removing subsidies, just a sudden jump in food prices for consumers. Assuming that the tax burden remains the same (the money for subsidies just gets transferred to something else), you're going to have a lot of very angry shoppers. Perhaps a better solution is to to set a timetable for the eventual removal of subsidies, allowing the company owners sufficient time to adjust their business model in preparation of the removal.
@SnoopDoggAtog: I think you're referring more to the continuing prosperity of existing family farms than the true reestablishment of a significant rural population. When you speak of your family going "back" to their land, you're referring to a situation where the people in question have a significant memory of rural living. For most kids raised in the city or the suburbs, neither they nor their family can even conceive of actually living and working on a farm.
I'm unsure what you're trying to say in your second point - doesn't "regulation protecting commodity values" qualify as a subsidy? You seem to think that speculation is the essential cause of the instability in commodity prices that makes farmers vulnerable and dependent on subsidies, and I would agree that it is one cause. However, if I remember my history right it was the general glut of agricultural products that caused prices to crash before the Great Depression and bankrupted farmers. Do you believe that the current global demand for food makes a similar situation unlikely? Otherwise, the government is going to be propping up the prices of oversupplied agricultural products and creating the same vicious cycle of overproduction that currently exists.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I hide myself within my flower
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
Post Green Revolution farming is too resource intensive, a secondary revolution will be necessary to continue. At least the use of things such as no tilling techniques are being developed, but there needs to be more done in plant breeding.
The more and more I wish I had a botony and genecist's background
Private Mod Note
():
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
I'm unsure what you're trying to say in your second point - doesn't "regulation protecting commodity values" qualify as a subsidy?
Yes. Prices fluctuate in every market; I don't see why farmers should have special protection, or why private insurance companies wouldn't adjust to cover dangers of drought or flooding.
Yes. Prices fluctuate in every market; I don't see why farmers should have special protection, or why private insurance companies wouldn't adjust to cover dangers of drought or flooding.
Supply side economics though?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Yes. Prices fluctuate in every market; I don't see why farmers should have special protection, or why private insurance companies wouldn't adjust to cover dangers of drought or flooding.
Well, I think SnoopDoggAtog was trying to point out that speculation-driven price fluctuations can bankrupt small farmers while leaving the large factory farms alive. If someone could actually institute an insurance system like you mention (or, better yet, a system of storing crops that lets farmers wait out unfavorable prices), then the small farmers could manage better.
Quote from Captain Morgan »
ost Green Revolution farming is too resource intensive, a secondary revolution will be necessary to continue. At least the use of things such as no tilling techniques are being developed, but there needs to be more done in plant breeding.
Breeding would be a good road to follow, along with selecting natural plant varieties and farming methods that are actually suited to the climate where they're farmed, instead of Green Revolution one-method-fits-all engineering. There's some fascinating info I've read about self-sustaining polycultures that can produce yields comparable to or better than those achieved with those god-awful petrochemical fertilizers.
Quote from Captain Morgan »
Supply side economics though?
Um, no. Subsidies are subsidies, and "supply-side economics" is a fancy-sounding way of saying "don't tax people I like."
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I hide myself within my flower
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
You're certainly correct about the efficiency, but I might disagree with you about the necessity of a scale-down. Given that it takes time for any company, let alone one as overspecialized and hulking as a factory farm, to change its way of doing business, you're not going to see an immediate gain in efficiency after removing subsidies, just a sudden jump in food prices for consumers. Assuming that the tax burden remains the same (the money for subsidies just gets transferred to something else), you're going to have a lot of very angry shoppers. Perhaps a better solution is to to set a timetable for the eventual removal of subsidies, allowing the company owners sufficient time to adjust their business model in preparation of the removal.
@SnoopDoggAtog: I think you're referring more to the continuing prosperity of existing family farms than the true reestablishment of a significant rural population. When you speak of your family going "back" to their land, you're referring to a situation where the people in question have a significant memory of rural living. For most kids raised in the city or the suburbs, neither they nor their family can even conceive of actually living and working on a farm.
I'm unsure what you're trying to say in your second point - doesn't "regulation protecting commodity values" qualify as a subsidy? You seem to think that speculation is the essential cause of the instability in commodity prices that makes farmers vulnerable and dependent on subsidies, and I would agree that it is one cause. However, if I remember my history right it was the general glut of agricultural products that caused prices to crash before the Great Depression and bankrupted farmers. Do you believe that the current global demand for food makes a similar situation unlikely? Otherwise, the government is going to be propping up the prices of oversupplied agricultural products and creating the same vicious cycle of overproduction that currently exists.
I get your point - IMO regulation doesn't always have to equal price controls or frank subsidy It could come from outside the commodities market - fair land practices and investor regulation - but would not involve directly tampering with the free floating commodities values or the taxation or valuation of any one commodity.
As for food supply and demand, and overproduction, the crops grown don't always have to be food crops. Much land in this country is ill-used, underused, or over-used because farmers are dedicating their land to one or a few crops, and the equipment and personnel to optimize that one crop. It makes it very expensive for them to back off of a crop that's glutted, and find something else. This lag between targeted specialization and changing prices is often a huge gap that swallows family farms and co-ops, and takes a considerable bite out of all but the most massive, diversified corporations.
Diversifying open land use may profitably include opening areas for grazing, planting windbreak trees and devoting marginal or fallow land to hosting moveable windrigs or solar arrays for powering a modest generator to run surrounding farm buildings. Using fallow land to generate electricity or enriched grazing or pulp wood or any other such intermediate-yield activity will help farmers weather a glut or a shortage. The real value isn't in huge windfalls of cash, but in savings on expenses. Increasingly with global climate change and shifting rainfall patterns, farmers will need to learn how and when to convert their land to nonfood use; with a growing population, we will always have need for electricity, and ways to capture and retain rainwater in the soil and water table where it belongs. The only way these nonfood uses could fail utterly is if the wind failed, or the sun. So they are more resistant to falling into the subsidy category.
Water policy proposals make me sick, like when the governor of New Mexico proposed taking water from the great lakes and shipping it to the desert areas to "alleviate" their drought conditions.
A national water policy would go a huge way to making farming better as well as to contend with water->fusion and just plain drinking water resources. But not "redistribution" to desert areas to enable a state to continue mismanaging its water resources or having too many people in a desert region that waste it.
Luckily cities like Las Vegas have taken it to heart, but not nationally sadly. So much wasted potential that a little basic innovation and preplanning can solve.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
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1) Besides those that directly benefit from these economically, who supports them? There seems to be near-universal agreement that they're unhealthy, distort trade, and actually only help a few very powerful big farmers, and hurt any small competition that tries to spring up.
2) Seriously... how are subsidies legal, anyway? Where in the Constitution did Congress get the right to take taxpayer money and give it to private businesses? That seems sort of blatantly rife with corruption.
Insert just about any socialist program, and its ripe for abuse.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
That then also means that WITH agricultural subsidies we have to pay a huge sum of money for everything grown on a farm. The money has to come from someone, and who do you think that is?
The only difference is that with subsidies the streamlining effect of free trade isn't allowed to increase efficiency and productivity, meaning that America as a whole spends more to get the same amount of crop.
Another issue with the subsidies that you don't hear many discussing is that the vast majority of them go towards producing artificial, processed, imitation foods from that bag of potato chips sitting on the supermarket shelf to the loaf of spineless (meaning that it's lost its crust almost completely) bread juiced-up with high-fructose corn syrup and "nutrients".
Hmm...I think I'll start another thread in here soon focusing on American food culture. That should be interesting.
And yet whenever they get into power, they all keep them up or increase them. It's a bizzare side-effect of federalism, I suppose. Though that doesn't explain other countries like France, but their reasons are pretty clear as well.
Does it have to be said in the Constitution to be legal? There's nothing in the Constitution about bipartisan politicians or presidential primaries but they still exist. Congress has been giving money to random sources from the beginning of its existence. I don't believe it says anywhere in the Constitution that it's legal to give any money to any one (though, that members of the government were to receive salaries was implied). With that said, the same logic could be used to take down social security and food stamps... both of which I really want gone. So you give some, you take some... I believe the Constitution actually supported "implied powers".
Those are systems, not actual powers. To answer your congress, yes, it does. Congress cannot simply grant itself powers. For obvious reasons.
I'd say the Taxing and Spending Clause would probably be used as justification for subsidies, particularly the contained General Welfare Clause. Is there anything the General Welfare Clause can't reasonably justify?
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The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
Farm subsidies should become less necessary and be phased out, along with re-regulation of commodities investment. You should NOT be able to get a fat subsidy for growing soybean when it is clearly in excess but has driven up price due to speculation.
There is also a strategic element to keeping local industries afloat artificially when they cannot compete with imports. If your local producers go out of business, you become dependant on those imports. It's why there is so much lobbying going on for the US to drill for more oil locally. It might not necessarily be cheaper but it could potentially lower the dependance on foreign oil.
Well, since most everyone agrees that farm subsidies are bad, how should we go about removing them? The current subsidy-fueled factory farm system isn't going to just magically adjust to a truly spectacular change in its business model if subsidies are cut, and particularly when commodity prices are so high, the price shocks that would result are unacceptable. (Never mind that the structure of the Senate gives agricultural states a huge advantage in keeping subsidies alive. If you want subsidies to go away, you're going to have to make the residents of Kansas et al. want to get rid of them.)
Even if you're willing to disregard the effects on consumers, you have to consider the vast change this would probably effect on the American countryside. Assume that the end of subsidies destroys the factory farm system and necessitates the return of family farms as our primary method of food production. Do Americans really want to be farmers anymore? If you want family farms to replace the agricultural factories, you're going to have to convince a lot of people to move back to the countryside and forgo what remains attractive in city and suburban life, not to mention reconstructing entire rural communities and networks of transportation.
None of this is intended to argue against the removal of subsidies - they promote the most inefficient, lumbering, and environmentally destructive agricultural sector the world has ever known. I do think, though, that there are a lot of factors to be considered. Thoughts?
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
I really do not see how the removal of subsidies is going to revert the US agriculture sector back to family farms. I would think that it would actually promote the growth of bigger more efficient factory farms. If the farms have to survive based purely on what they can sell their crops for then the most productive, most cost-effective ones are going to be the ones surviving.
I can think of several people in my immediate family who would jump at the chance to buy back our family's land and start farming it again. Sure I would like to see an America where you don't absolutely have to sell your land at a severe discount and move to a big city because of one bad year, but more importantly one in which bright, ambitious young people can stay in their communities where they were raised, and continue working the land their family has cared for for generations, and still make a decent living.
As for networks and transportation, and I'll add access to health care and educational opportunities here because it is germane, we've come a long way since the interstates were first built. Internet access, wireless phone service, telemedicine, regional power initiatives, distance learning and credentialing, all of these help modern farmers gain access to a fair standard for education, business services, health care, and communication.
In fact, factory farming is a suboptimal model in an unsubsidized and therefore internally sustainable agricultural industry. To maximize efficiency, factory farms are highly specialized for production and processing of one or a few types of crops. A drop in the price of that monoculture, or a severe drought or poor season, will hurt all farmers, but especially if they are not drawing on a diversified yield. Factory farms survive such odd and shortsighted problems by dint of being able to draw on a lot of cash to recover, and by garnering subsidies. Taking away subsidies from farms who do not meet sufficient criteria for diversification may discourage this monoculture speculation and encourage farms of all sizes to be more self-reliant and sustainable. But any measure to reduce or eliminate farm subsidies has to come with some sort of regulation protecting commodity values. Deregulating investment and speculation has done plenty of damage. As a result, subsidy is no longer optional. It's a desperate lifeline for too many landowners, year in and year out. And that level of subsidy is breaking the system.
You're certainly correct about the efficiency, but I might disagree with you about the necessity of a scale-down. Given that it takes time for any company, let alone one as overspecialized and hulking as a factory farm, to change its way of doing business, you're not going to see an immediate gain in efficiency after removing subsidies, just a sudden jump in food prices for consumers. Assuming that the tax burden remains the same (the money for subsidies just gets transferred to something else), you're going to have a lot of very angry shoppers. Perhaps a better solution is to to set a timetable for the eventual removal of subsidies, allowing the company owners sufficient time to adjust their business model in preparation of the removal.
@SnoopDoggAtog: I think you're referring more to the continuing prosperity of existing family farms than the true reestablishment of a significant rural population. When you speak of your family going "back" to their land, you're referring to a situation where the people in question have a significant memory of rural living. For most kids raised in the city or the suburbs, neither they nor their family can even conceive of actually living and working on a farm.
I'm unsure what you're trying to say in your second point - doesn't "regulation protecting commodity values" qualify as a subsidy? You seem to think that speculation is the essential cause of the instability in commodity prices that makes farmers vulnerable and dependent on subsidies, and I would agree that it is one cause. However, if I remember my history right it was the general glut of agricultural products that caused prices to crash before the Great Depression and bankrupted farmers. Do you believe that the current global demand for food makes a similar situation unlikely? Otherwise, the government is going to be propping up the prices of oversupplied agricultural products and creating the same vicious cycle of overproduction that currently exists.
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
The more and more I wish I had a botony and genecist's background
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Yes. Prices fluctuate in every market; I don't see why farmers should have special protection, or why private insurance companies wouldn't adjust to cover dangers of drought or flooding.
Supply side economics though?
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Well, I think SnoopDoggAtog was trying to point out that speculation-driven price fluctuations can bankrupt small farmers while leaving the large factory farms alive. If someone could actually institute an insurance system like you mention (or, better yet, a system of storing crops that lets farmers wait out unfavorable prices), then the small farmers could manage better.
Breeding would be a good road to follow, along with selecting natural plant varieties and farming methods that are actually suited to the climate where they're farmed, instead of Green Revolution one-method-fits-all engineering. There's some fascinating info I've read about self-sustaining polycultures that can produce yields comparable to or better than those achieved with those god-awful petrochemical fertilizers.
Um, no. Subsidies are subsidies, and "supply-side economics" is a fancy-sounding way of saying "don't tax people I like."
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
I get your point - IMO regulation doesn't always have to equal price controls or frank subsidy It could come from outside the commodities market - fair land practices and investor regulation - but would not involve directly tampering with the free floating commodities values or the taxation or valuation of any one commodity.
As for food supply and demand, and overproduction, the crops grown don't always have to be food crops. Much land in this country is ill-used, underused, or over-used because farmers are dedicating their land to one or a few crops, and the equipment and personnel to optimize that one crop. It makes it very expensive for them to back off of a crop that's glutted, and find something else. This lag between targeted specialization and changing prices is often a huge gap that swallows family farms and co-ops, and takes a considerable bite out of all but the most massive, diversified corporations.
Diversifying open land use may profitably include opening areas for grazing, planting windbreak trees and devoting marginal or fallow land to hosting moveable windrigs or solar arrays for powering a modest generator to run surrounding farm buildings. Using fallow land to generate electricity or enriched grazing or pulp wood or any other such intermediate-yield activity will help farmers weather a glut or a shortage. The real value isn't in huge windfalls of cash, but in savings on expenses. Increasingly with global climate change and shifting rainfall patterns, farmers will need to learn how and when to convert their land to nonfood use; with a growing population, we will always have need for electricity, and ways to capture and retain rainwater in the soil and water table where it belongs. The only way these nonfood uses could fail utterly is if the wind failed, or the sun. So they are more resistant to falling into the subsidy category.
A national water policy would go a huge way to making farming better as well as to contend with water->fusion and just plain drinking water resources. But not "redistribution" to desert areas to enable a state to continue mismanaging its water resources or having too many people in a desert region that waste it.
Luckily cities like Las Vegas have taken it to heart, but not nationally sadly. So much wasted potential that a little basic innovation and preplanning can solve.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.