Posted on 08/06/2019 9:09:09 AM PDT by central_va
Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Value Added by Industry series, recently released by USDA’s Economic Research Service, indicates that – on a broad level – agriculture contributed a record-high $1.05 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product in 2016, up $35 billion, or 6 percent, from the prior year. U.S. GDP in 2016 was $18.6 trillion, thus agriculture’s contribution represented 5.7 percent of the U.S. economy.
However, as a direct result of falling commodity prices, in 2016, the contribution of farm production to U.S. GDP fell to $136.7 billion, down 6 percent from 2015, and the lowest level since 2010. As a share of the total U.S. economy, the farm contribution was less than 1 percent and the lowest level since the series was first recorded in 2007. Importantly, farm-level GDP is down nearly 30 percent from the 2013 record of $187 billion, and after declining for three consecutive years, the farm share of agricultural GDP, at 13 percent, is at the lowest level since the series was first recorded in 2007, Figure 1.
(Excerpt) Read more at fb.org ...
The farming myth dispelled...........
This data seems to end in 2016, under Obama.
Also weather, here and over the fields of our competitors, might be a bigger factor than trade issues.
Hard to draw firm conclusions about trade effects.
But in terms of Government policy, ensuring food supply is a pretty critical, albeit little discussed, area of concern - even if it is a small component of GDP.
And of course, in some rural areas, agricultural interests have important political influence.
Bert please chime in here and tell PJT how anti capitalist he is with his support of farm subsidies. He's a hypocrite, right?
Believe me pal, my capitalist hypocrite friend, we’d have plenty of food and fatsos without farm subsidies. Small farms are inefficient and need to go away. They are so 19th century. They are a political/economic burden and holding us back. Just like all the over paid factory worker jobs we sent overseas in the 90’ and 00’s. They all of them learned to code or became rocket surgeons. Right Bert?
For over 30 years I thought we were being played by the ‘farm lobby’ (think Farm Aid) - I guess I was right.
Hey where are you? I need you to fix these hypocrite fake capitalists.
It is fun to virtue signal and hold farmers up on some mythic pedestal. This is politically stupid.
And if the headline was "Steel contribution to Manufacturing GDP at record lows" you would be out there screeching to triple the tariffs. Agriculture in this country employees about 860,000 people; sixteen times as many as coal mining and five times as many as steel production. Yet you bellow about enacting tariffs to protect those and are more than willing to let agriculture go down the drain.
I’m looking at your chart. Why have you chosen to pick out only the “farm” part? They are ALL inter-related to make up the Agricultural GDP are they wouldn’t be included.
GDP From Manufacturing in the United States increased to 2178.20 USD Billion in the first quarter of 2019 from 2154.90 USD Billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. GDP From Manufacturing in the United States averaged 1987.20 USD Billion from 2005 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 2178.20 USD Billion in the first quarter of 2019 and a record low of 1798.60 USD Billion in the first quarter of 2009.
Manufacturing is 11% of GDP.
Maintaining farm production has been a Government concern, far back into antiquity. It is just an essential function.
Not everyone can do it, It requires a significant body of knowledge, and a culture of hard work. Especially nowadays, the workforce available to manage and operate farms, is also a small percentage of of our population.
Some are dramatically more productive/efficient than others. South African/Rhodesian Boers are famous for their exceptional productivity, as are the Amish. American farmers, as a group, are world-class productive experts within their industry. They are high skill specialists, who need years of education and experience to achieve their competitive edge.
The finances of farms can be rocked by weather, pests and diseases - acts of God that can wipe out the crops of an entire industry (like a freeze wiping out all the citrus orchards in a region). If disaster simultaneously bankrupts a large number of farm operations, and that workforce has go get other jobs (learn to code), new people are incapable of replacing them next season.
Farms are different from most essential businesses, due to their exceptional (financial) vulnerability to the forces of nature.
-PJ
No, food processors can get their raw food materials from anywhere in the world, grains, pork and cattle etc. are traded on the world market.
Wow. For a Republican and capitalist you certainly do not understand world agricultural markets do you? Right Bert? I always thought Republicans understood how trade works. I guess I was incorrect about that.
“Mapping The U.S. Farm Subsidy $1M Club”
Top 10 U.S. farm subsidy recipients from 2008 through 2017 benefiting from 60 federal farm programs administered by the USDA. These government programs include marketing assistance, agricultural risk, price loss coverage, livestock forage, conservation, crop disaster and many more.
Since 2008 the top 10 farm subsidy recipients each received an average of $18.2 million – that’s $1.8 million annually, $150,000 per month, or $35,000 a week. With the median household income of $60,000 a year, these farmers received more than 30 times the average yearly income of U.S. families.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/08/14/mapping-the-u-s-farm-subsidy-1-million-club/#7618489c3efc
In a capitalist society nothing is essential. I learned this here on Free Republic. Everything can be off shored and the knowledge lost is not important, entire key industries gone, nobody cares. It’s all about maximizing profit. Agriculture should be no exception. Right? Quit being a damn hypocrite.
“Quit being a damn hypocrite.”
Where was I being hypocritical?
Also, it sounds like you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of “Capitalism”.
The term was coined by Karl Marx, to demonize private ownership - the right of people to keep and control their own property.
“Capitalism” is freedom, and autonomy for the individual.
The alternative to “capitalism”, is all individuals being dependent on the State - subjects, vassals or slaves.
What a cowardly thing to do to avoid the points made by others in the other thread.
-PJ
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