What else can we shore up in the US by throwing money at it, and having 80% siphoned off by lying and criminal politicians?
Agriculture doesn’t begin to count for one in 10 jobs nationwide—unless I suppose you count restaurant and grocery store workers!
And there is no special reason that agriculture needs government investment. If new tech and products are economically viable, then those who develop and market them will be rewarded in the free market system as in any other sector.
What we need to do, which is the opposite of what Kushner is apparently doing with Trump’s immigration plan, is to stop with importing cheap labor for it. That more than anything is what is retarding ag’s investment in tech. And without capital investments, individual jobs don’t become more valuable and more highly rewarded.
There is no good reason for us to be importing fruits and vegetables from the poison cesspool that is China. Notice, we never our produce marked as such—and people wouldn’t buy it if they knew China to be the source.
Again, we over-trade with China. We should be growing and delivering our food locally!
Tractor monkeys: learn to code.
> Flooding of one million acres cost the economy $12.5 billion
$12,500 / acre.
After centuries of agriculture being a bedrock of American society and the national economy, the country’s farming sector now finds itself suffering from insufficient governmental investment. This has affected all facets of the industry, including a research and development (R&D) arm that desperately requires capital to pursue technological innovations in the field.
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I won’t discuss it until the government stops forcing me to put corn in my gas tank.
Government “investment” disproportionately favors those who can pay for DC lobbyists — mainly big corporate agricultural concerns.
Government regulations favor large corporate farms over small family farms. Estate taxes cause small family farms to have to be sold to pay death taxes.
We’ve got to love our farmers. They are vital.
Taxpayer dollars poured into farming is not s solution.
The drop-off in investment has come at a time when farmers are struggling to make ends meet.
The absence of real numbers tells me that the R&D has likely not dropped in real terms, just that all other government spending has skyrocketed.
Farmers survived for millennia without government handouts; they can do it again. All those do is disrupt markets and create a cycle of dependency that deepens every passing year.
It used to be important to this country to have a 3 year reserve. Now if we don’t use the last bushel of old crop the same day the new crop comes in, we screwed up.
Food security used to be important, now we worry if there are enough butt plugs...………………...
Like Big Trucking, Big Farming can only exist pumped up on the backs of subsidies and regulations.
The U.S. Chamber of Socialist Commerce wants their Big Regulations.
We all know what an investment really is - it's a capital acquisition that has a reasonable probability of providing a periodic return so as to repay the investment with interest, you know, like putting money into a property that you can rent or building a house you can sell or acquiring a machine tool to make parts that can be sold at market prices to recoup the cost of the machine and pay the labor and material expenses involved.
A piece of fallow land is not an investment - it's speculation. A government "investment" is even worse. It's not even good speculation.
At the same time, precision agriculture is expected to reduce herbicide consumption by as much as 90 percent, curbing the number of harmful contaminants the Earth is subjected to and optimizing crop growth in one fell swoop. Simply put, technology has the potential to be a no-brainer cure-all for all the industry’s ills.
Just like global warming, the sun has more to do with agriculture that man. We have had some good production years but that may be changing. Not that technology isn’t important.
I worked with farmers for many years. The management target was maximum yield NOT maximin profit. There is a difference.
Precision farming? yes, nice graphs and pictures but then the rate of fertilizer is for the max yield which is only 1 in ten. If one part of the field looked poorly it is because your precision fertilizer and herbicide application caused it. So...……………………… human psychology says max rates on the whole farm so there is no blame. BUT AGAIN, NICE COLOR GRAPHS.
My observation. Technology added a cost with no return. But again, profit was not the goal.
What determines the herbicide application rate? The recommended rate on the package, else the warrantee is not any good. Not that the warrantee is of much value anyway.
The only management decision farmers make anymore is what color paint is on the machinery.
Agriculture is still the most pure capitalism we have in the USA, even with all the government and large business “help”. We can all complain with our mouth full.
The government is not the answer.
If they are corporate farms, it’s up to the corporations to come up with the capital.
“...the country’s farming sector now finds itself suffering from insufficient governmental investment.”
The more the government is involved the more you will suffer.
Wait. Someone is arguong that Agribusiness doesn’t get enough govt subsidies?
Uh. NO. The author is barking up the wrong tree. Agriculture is getting plenty of gubment help already.
We have a NRCS, used to be USDA, office here. I still can’t figure out what they do. I guess they take care of the upstream flood control lakes. I saw them go by Friday with a four wheeler which is the first time I have seen them out in ages. Once upon a time they helped build ponds and control erosion and help with pasture improvement. Now? Not sure. Their advice to me on improving bermuda pasture was to “manage for bermuda” that is all.
The gubment has given billions upon billions in support to farmers with ethanol mandates. Where do you think the money comes from for the boom in farm equipment sales we have seen or the Taj Mahal like barns and farm shops featured on the Morton and other farm building sites? What has driven the price of farm land up to stratospheric levels?
Land grant colleges all across the nation consistently and persistently do research as do private investors. Where does the author think all the GMO varieties of crops have come from?
Let’s have a conversation about the poor family farmer when we get through looking at some of the massive private farm machinery collections housed in well kept buildings scattered across the farm belt. Someones are doing pretty well with farming.
How about the billions of pounds of cheese the gubment owns that have been bought for price supports?
When I see one of these articles pining for the family farm and wanting more gubment support I see someone pining for a bucolic way of life that has been replaced by economy of scale. There is a reason for 60’ or more spread air planters and it does not fit the small family farm any more. My little slice of the world may have once supported a family but not nearly in the style we are accustomed to now. It is just not possible. My wife grew up in pretty much a shack on a large family farm that made ends meet. It would not come close to being much more than just enough and living in a shack now.
Farming does not need more money to support the family farm. That would be just another form of welfare and we have more of that than we can afford right now.
I’ll start to worry when farm land starts sitting idle.