Can we eliminate agriculture subsidies so we can cut production and reduce the amount of wasted food?

Question

ag subsidies encourage production. About half the food in the US is wasted. We could save energy and reduce the federal budget by eliminating subsidies.

Answer 1

You SHOULD eliminate subsidies, but also make Europe do the same.

Many, many, countries, all of them part of the Cairns group, that do not recieve subsidies suffer billions of dollars because of the subsidies Europe and the USA give away every year.

I know is a form of protection for the farmers but when you are talking about FREE TRADE you should also include commodities as well.

Otherwise, even if you don't notice it, you are sending broke thousands of farmers across the world every year.

Besides, it'a a boomerang effect.

Countries who do not give subsidies, as Argentina and Brazil, force their farmers to be more and more competitive than Americans and Europeans and this, makes this last two to give more and more subsidies to protect their farmers against the other two.

Answer 2

Corn is the largest subsidized crop as far as I know.   The price has risen so much the last few years due to its use in making ethanol it doesn't make sense to pay farmers to grow it anymore.    Other crops could use subsidies though.

Answer 3

I received a subsidy check last year.  I own 100 acres and I am paid 1200 dollars by the government.  So like 12 dollars an acre.  There is also two other government programs available.  LDP (Loan Deficiency Payment) is a price paid to the farmer per bushel based on the fall price.  Example:  1999 Was a horrible crop year.  We had no bins at the time, crops were awful cause of wet spring followed by dry summer and a crash of prices.  Break even price at the time per bushel was 2.25 per bushel.  Prices that harvest was 1.65 at the lows. This is where the government stepped in.  The LDP is the county loan rate usually 2.05 here. 2.05-1.65=LDP per bushel payed to the farmer.  Saved our operation from taking devestating losses.  We took bad losses instead.  Or there is the government program of CCC loans.  Farmers with bins store their crops long after harvest.  The government loans them 2.05 a bushel at a cheap interest rate.  This allows the farmer to pay bills, repay loans at the bank (high rates), and float till they deliver their grain.  The grain is held as collateral until the loan and interest is paid back in full.

So you can see the programs make good sense.  The problem being some manipulations of these practical programs by a few bad apples.

For example  There is a cap amount the government can subsidize to an organization or an individual.  I know of a farmer who put a stripper he frequented as a recipient of subsidies.  The loophole for this type of abuse still remains a problem.  http://www.ewg.org/farming  Explains many of these issues.  

As a subsidy recipient I understand the frustration of the tax payer with subsidies.  However, with a 10% increase in production costs each year, (which is going to the big corporations btw) how much more can you cut the most efficient agriculture economy man has ever seen?  How much profit does agriculture make the average american?  I wouldn't mind subsidies to go away.  Its a paper trail nightmare.  We have to submit yield data, farm sizes etc etc to insurance and local farm agencies.  I don't like being paid money by the government.  My great grandfather said getting involved with the government is like laying on a bed of nails.  One wrong move and they will run you through.  Plan on paying more for your food.  Half the food is wasted in the country?  Be happy we have the food to waste.

Answer 4

the big reasons for the subsidies is

to keep the USA trade balance, the USA exports lots of food.

to keep third world countries from getting a solid agricultural base, so that they are not a threat to us.

the trade balance is very important , but the other reasons are not so good.

you could try to stop the subsidies to try to save energy, but

this is a big issue with the safety of the country at risk,

even if everyone voted to get rid of it,

I doubt that we would be allowed to do it.

Answer 5

The subsides exist for a reason as the previous post by a farmer explains.  Farmers can have a tough time making money, think about....in a good growing year, all farmers have good growing conditions, therefore their is alot of corn on the market, therefore demand decreases and the price per bushel drops.  In a bad year, every farmer has a bad year and the price is high because their not enough corn to supply demand.  

"Wasted food" could be used as an biomass energy source.

Answer 6

I don't know where you get that half the food in america is wasted.  I don't know what you call waste, either.  Maybe all the weight Americans pack around their middles is waste in your mind.  Ag subsidies are designed to provide cheap food, both here and abroad.  Most farmers would be economically ahead to sell out and put their money in the bank.  Over the last century very few of the segments of our economy have attained the increased productivity of agriculture.  If you eliminated all crop subsidies you wouldn't see much change in the federal budget or most state budgets.  Those budgets go for regulations, food stamps, welfare programs, school lunches, etc.  Most state agriculture departments run on fees to farmers, not on tax dollars.

Answer 7

I recently talked to a farmer who said that the subsidies help the farmers to produce the grain that is then exported to reduce national debt. Not sure just what I was told.

Answer 8

Yes we can!!  So many people in my area receive subsidies and then throw it all away!! That's what is wrong!!

Answer 9

With all the money that lobbyists for agribusiness spend on convincing congress that small farmers will starve without subsidies (even though the small guys get a tiny percentage of the subsidies) agricultural subsidies will not go away if waste and production were cut. It still would go on as a way of life for the farm lobby.

Answer 10

Yes, we should eliminate subsidies and run all US farmers out of business. No farmers. Maybe we could end up like in Zimbabwe. We could eat boiled rats and watch the children starve to death. What a grand idea!

Answer 11

It would be better to apply these subsidies to fruits and vegetables( not potatoes). This would have the benefit of increasing the nations health enormously.

Answer 12

If a food product is produced and not needed, subsidized or not, it is just make work and the purchase price regardless is low enough that most would opt to grow something else in the next season. The overage should be better managed to get to a place it is needed instead of the elimination of subsidies. It is the same as growing excesses, that the same energy, time and cost is better spent on a product that has a higher selling price. Energy, time, and cost to lobby a change in the laws and subsidies is better spent getting food to hungry people.

Keep in mind also, a country or even a small group/ individual can not produce, just to the serving, exactly what is needed, no more no less. There will always be an overage. Like Christmas trees. So many go to waste. You can't grow exactly the amount so everyone gets one, no more no less. It doesn't work that way, supply and demand in a society like the US demands overage, it is the management of that overage (un-used and recycled x-mas trees are used to stabilize land) that is needed.

Answer 13

Did you know the American public pays less for food than most other industrialized countries. Subsidies are paid farmers to keep retail prices down.

I heard that during the great depression farmers wanted to unionize to control the low prices received, and F.D. R. forbid it.

Farming is the least control able industry because of the un-predictable weather.

How would any of you non farmers like to work hard for 2 or 3 years in a row and lose money?

Thank you, all you farmers out there, if they allowed trading crops for Gold, we'd all be millionaires

Answer 14

There aren't really any subsidies. There are price supports.

When the price is low, the government buys corn. When the price is high, the government sells it.

If you or I did that, we'd make a profit. The government does it, and loses money. Why? Because the bookkeeping is wacky.

In theory, the price supports don't raise the price of corn, nor do they lower it. What they do is to keep the prices from swinging up and down so much.

In the Kennedy administration, they asked farmers to vote on whether they wanted one program or another. The farmers voted against both of them. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman declared, "Never again", and by gosh, farmers never again were asked whether they wanted these programs. The biggest supporters are not farmers, but companies that buy agricultural products and turn them into flour, pizza, corn meal, corn flakes, and wheaties.  Farmers are, on the whole, rather independent cusses, who would rather have the freedom to do well or poorly, on their own.

Answer 15

It doesn't work like that though. If you reduce the price that the farmer gets they actually grow more stuff because they need more of it to sell to get the same income. However more stuff in the market drive the unit price down and then they must grow even more. But that drives the price even lower and then they can not make a profit no matter how much the grow so they all go bankrupt. That means nobody grows anything and then everybody is hungry and the prices skyrocket.

Answer 16

The basic ideal for farm subsidies is to limit the amount of a commodity produced.  For example the Government will agree that you get a guaranteed price for wheat if you agree to grow a set limited number of acres of wheat.  If the farmer grows more acres of wheat than agreed on then he gets no subsidy from the government.   If farm subsidies were removed all at once farmers would put more and more marginal land into production to survive.  Production would greatly increase rather than decrease as you believe.  Government subsidies should be fazed out in Agriculture, in fact they never should have started in my opinion, but it will have to be fazed out slowly over time to allow things to get back on the supply and demand basis, or our farmers will be forced out of business.  Then you would start to see hunger in the US.  I don't know where you get your information that half of the food produced is wasted.  I've been farming for more than 40 years and to the best of my knowledge nothing I've produced has been wasted.  Do you consider exporting excess production to other countries that need it as wasted?