If too much food is being produced then some farmers will go out of business and prices will go up for the rest, like how capitalism works for everything else. And I believe that actual farmers, rather than Manhattan "farmers" probably get very little per bushel.
Farm subsidies were a bad idea back during the Depression (like most of FDR's economics) and haven't improved since then.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/grassley-s-farm-bill-challenge-limit-subsidies-to-actual-farmers
...“I do not believe in unlimited subsidies, like are in the House farm bill,” said the senator during a speech at the think tank Heritage Foundation...
,,,Lawmakers have tussled over so-called payment limits for decades.
Large operators collect the lion’s share of subsidies because the payments are based on volume of production. If these large farms also have many people declared as “managers,” multiple people can claim a payment in the operation.
Grassley, however, believes the payments should be directed to family-size operations.
Defenders say crop subsidies are a small part of revenue for farmers and assure production of cotton, grains, and soybeans...
Simple explanation: Plenty of Manhattan residents are owners or investors in farms. You don’t have to live on a farm to own it.
Since the early days of farming, wealthy landowners would live in the city while actual rural farmers would lease the land or have other agreements.
I’m against farm subsidies but all our farmers would soon go out of business due to cheaper substandard produce from places like Mexico. We can ban them but good luck getting any fresh fruit in winter then
The question of where farm owners may be permitted to live is entirely separate from the question of farm subsidies (today, mainly subsidized crop insurance). There is always indignant grumping that the bulk of farm program payments flow to the big operators. But before saying, "just ditch the whole system," one should recognize that the subsidies are intended to protect mainly the hard-pressed smaller farmers. (About 150,000 large farms produce three quarters of the nation's food, feed and fiber; the smaller farms of 150-500 acres are very hard-pressed to compete with the big guys.) This leads to occasional calls to exclude larger farms from the support system. This is stupidity on stilts. We presumably should not want a farm policy that systematically discriminates against our most productive, most efficient and most innovative producers.
If we choose to eliminate the farm programs entirely, so be it. But understand that the likely consequence will be the rapid erosion of smaller producers. The big guys are competitive and will adapt readily to the loss of supports. They will happily buy out their smaller neighbors.
Because farmland has become so expensive, many who would farm can’t afford to buy and investors take the risk many real farmers can’t.
I’m just thinking of a few examples around here where wealthier people buy farms and farm them. What a colossal waste of resources, I’m glad they stay in Manhattan.
There is the old joke of how to become a millionaire farming: Start with 2 million.
I wanted to post a pic of Oliver and Lisa from “Green Acres,” but unfortunately for some reason it won’t let me.
In 1998, I inherited a farm of 160 acres (one-quarter section) from my dad’s oldest brother. The farm came from his wife’s family original homestead in KS. My uncle and aunt had no children so that’s how I received the farm in the will. They had never physically farmed it and it was on a share-crop arrangement with a local farmer. I continued that arrangement for the next 14 years that I owned the farm.
Not quite half of the ground was planted to wheat which has a price support in the various farm bills over those years. Crop insurance was also subsidized in the law. In order to get a farmer to actually work the ground, I had to participate in those USDA programs. Across those years, my recollection is that I received price support payments 2-3 times and the insurance paid for weather-related crop damage twice. There were a couple of years where the price of wheat was really good and the yield was also nice so the payoff was rewarding. It was certainly way better than the measly subsidies and insurance checks.
BTW - the term “actively farming” means you are participating in the potential for gain or loss because you are paying for the inputs, even at a share-crop arrangement level which was 1/3 from me, 2/3 from the guy working the ground. The only cost I paid fully was the taxes.
