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Topic:
The end of cheap food
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/7/07 7:06am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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yankee8255 posted:
Here in Austria, they're used to promote "alpine" farmers" in order to help limit the over-development of alpine pastures, basically keeping the alps pristine and avoid the high country from being one giant condo.
I have a relative who owns one of those dairy operations. It's vanishingly small by American dairy industry standards. There is no way these farms are remotely close to being economically viable. It's as much about keeping rural Austria and the incomes of rural Austrians intact as it is about pristine alpine lands. This in turn supports other economic activities that would not be sustainable without the subsidies - like the network of large animal vets and its associations' local monopolies that control the number of people entering the profession in a given area.
To be honest I envy Austria's system of tight socialized controls that help preserve the country's cultural integrity. This is the kind of problem that globalization and unregulated markets can't address.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
12/9/07 12:59pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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THe question is, do you, as consumers, want to keep paying more for food?
I'm all for choice, and those who want to pay more for goods should have that option made available to them. However, given the scaling costs of everything else from fuel to accommodation to electricity, there's going to come a point where something has to give.
We have an answer by way of using the massive amount of agriculture in the developing world to produce food to meet demand, but they're barred from truly accessing markets by anticompetitive subsidies.
E_S
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yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
12/10/07 5:17am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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Ultima_1 posted:
It all comes down to perspective. Having lived in Iowa most of my life, I think that the way the senate is populated makes sense, as it keeps states with large populations from being able to dictate to the rest of the country.
As someone who has never been to Manhattan and has no plans to go there, I don't see why we should use national funds on a subway line. It should be the city's responsibility to maintain and expand their transportation infrastructure.
But my tax dollars (were I still living in the US) should go to paying farmers to grow corn for use in ethanol, an absolutely worthless case of pork-barrel spending? Why should rural states with tiny populations reap in the the money from farm subsidies, but Metropolitan areas get no help at all from the federal government. You don't want the federal government to help finance a vitally necessary public transportation project? Fine. But then be consistent push your senators and congressmen to give up the farming subsidies. I'm not holding my breath.
Ender_Sai posted:
THe question is, do you, as consumers, want to keep paying more for food?
I'm all for choice, and those who want to pay more for goods should have that option made available to them. However, given the scaling costs of everything else from fuel to accommodation to electricity, there's going to come a point where something has to give.
We have an answer by way of using the massive amount of agriculture in the developing world to produce food to meet demand, but they're barred from truly accessing markets by anticompetitive subsidies.
E_S
It would be alot easier to evaluate if European countries were forced to open their books on the amount of subsidies they pay out. There was a movement a few moths ago to do so, but, as usual, the movement was struck down.
Regardless, my wife and I are willing to pay more when shopping for organic products. By and large they taste better, and we're careful about what we put on the table for our daughters. I'd sure like to know how much more I'm really paying, though, in terms of the subsidies.
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/10/07 7:04am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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You'd be shocked, I'm sure. Austrians and I assume other Europeans as well have a big thing for non-genetically engineered foods. American's conception of "organic" doesn't even necessarily address the issue of genetically modified produce. Americans are I'd say 99% indifferent to this aspect. Our basic take is: "isn't pretty much all food genetically engineered?"
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/10/07 12:19pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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More about the demand side of food economics
Highlights:
- If current population trends continue, our world will face the challenge in the next 10 to 15 years of feeding another China, or about another 1 billion people.
- Worldwide, farm acreage has increased by only 2 percent over the past decade, while in the United States acreage is down. At the same time, the world population has increased by 12 percent, consumption of pork has increased 27 percent, chicken 28 percent, soybeans 40 percent, and corn 22 percent.
- A limiting factor in increasing farm productivity may be water. A recent United Nations report says, the world’s sources of freshwater, such as rivers, lakes and groundwater reservoirs, will not be able to sustain future generations if they continue to be overexploited.
Conclusion: our food problems run a lot deeper than EU/US subsidies.
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
12/10/07 12:59pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
- Date Edited:
12/10/07 1:01pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Ender_Sai
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Yankee, I'd make that call too, but right now your choices are limited because of anticompetitive state policies which deny us the choice of cheaper imported foodstuffs.
Longer brief on the food prices here: Cheap No More
E_S
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/11/07 2:46pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
- Date Edited:
12/11/07 2:51pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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One thing to remember, the free market is designed for profit, not necessarily keeping people alive. There's a reason just about every nation on earth subsidizes food production: People get upset when they have nothing to eat. The free market doesn't "want" to feed everybody any more than it "wants" to limit CO2 emissions. And under a purely free market system, the gods of efficiency, supply and demand may well decree that millions of people starve. When "The Economist" suggests that free markets will do a better job of feeding everyone, they're writing the most arbitrary kind of speculative fiction by attributing to market mechanisms characteristics that they do not inherently possess.
There's nothing wrong with pricing people out of the market for food, unless of course access to food is somehow fundamentally different from an iPod or a pair of gym shoes.
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Mr44
Title: Modly McHume:
the Senate
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
12/11/07 3:15pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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In some circles, I think there are those who would choose an I-Pod over food, and starve to death while blissfully listening to 50 songs in a row...
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Ender_Sai
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Feb '01
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Date Posted:
12/11/07 3:40pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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Well Jabba, the argument about getting cheap developing world food products into our markets is pretty hard to ignore.
E_S
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/11/07 5:13pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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What I do agree with from the article is the implication that, by subsidizing corn-based ethanol, the U.S. is playing a dangerous game with the world's food supply.
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Espaldapalabras
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
12/11/07 9:35pm
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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Jabbadabbado posted:
What I do agree with from the article is the implication that, by subsidizing corn-based ethanol, the U.S. is playing a dangerous game with the world's food supply.
Not to mention wasting billions of dollars in a feel good nationalistic boondoggle while simultaneously underfunding workable energy solutions.
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Jabbadabbado
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
12/12/07 7:24am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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Unfortunately, it's completely bipartisan in the ugliest sense of the word - making it almost impossible to stop until (in the best case scenario) it collapses under the weight of its own stupidity.
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yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
12/14/07 3:28am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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Worth mentioning that in the last Republican debate, John McCain specifically mentioned ethanol subsidies as somehting he would eliminate immediately if elected. He was my preferred candidate in 2000, and, flaws and all, remains it today.
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Espaldapalabras
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
12/14/07 4:43am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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And that is the reason he isn't campaigning in Iowa.
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yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
12/17/07 12:36am
Subject:
RE: The end of cheap food
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Espaldapalabras posted:
And that is the reason he isn't campaigning in Iowa.
And probably doesn't have much of a chance of getting the nomination.
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