Posted on 08/06/2004 2:37:27 PM PDT by Willie Green
The draft agreement reached last week in Geneva by 147 countries in the World Trade Organization, including the United States, is important and controversial for domestic politics. The lethal combination probably means that it will benefit from little discussion and no legislative attention until after the November elections.
The problem is the United States, the European Union and Japan all pay large subsidies to their domestic agricultural producers, amounting to some $300 billion a year. The United States alone pays its farmers $18 billion annually.
That means that Americans, Europeans and Japanese get hit twice -- first in their tax money transferred to the farmers, second as consumers, since basically the $300 billion finances inefficient or excess agricultural production.
American, European and Japanese citizens may be prepared to pay this penalty for other reasons. These include preserving domestic agricultural production in case of emergency, pleasing voters in farm states, stimulating campaign contributions to legislators and political parties, and indulging Willie Nelson-type sentimentality about preserving America's origins as a nation of small farmers.
The trouble is that American, European and Japanese agriculture -- subsidized, technologically sophisticated and efficient -- inevitably butchers international competition from poor, underdeveloped states, many of which have nothing to sell but agricultural products.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
The economic paradox of agriculture production is that, while modern farming methods enable bountiful production to satisfy the population's needs, such abundance also drives the market price below the cost of production, with the potential of driving too many farmers out of production. The fundamental purpose of crop subsidies is to assure that doesn't happen, and helps us avoid the widespread hunger and famine that would result if it did.
It is in each nation's best self-interest to be as self-sufficient at providing its own food supply as its climate and natural resources permit. While every nation should be encouraged to trade and share their surplus, NO nation, including our own, should accept importation of food products that undercut domestic production.
ping
Bump.
CHRISTIANITY means not hurting our poor breathren by undercutting their way of producing a livable income
Killing subsidies is a HUGE problem to the TINY FARM farmers of europe. These are small land owners whose small farms are just as important to them as our own farms/homes.
Many have zero reasonable means of keeping their family farm and obtaining other employment. IOW there is NOTHING else they can do for income.
Why is this important. Many of these uneducated farmers have been sucker by banks (german french among others) with 0% interest loans. These same banks petition to cut farm susidies with the EU and individual nations. This means the farmers can make the 0% loan and are forclosed. Since these small farms grow much the same thing to be able to share the picking efforts, it ends up with large chunks being forclosed. The the parcels are consolodated.
Many of these are not lazy, just outclassed ecconomically by their own people, outclassed techwise in the 21st century, and just no way for their governments to have considered what to do with their own farmers.
European nations geneally screw their farmers to achieve their commie social engineering. The farmers then have a history of lining the nearest eurocrats along the nearest wall.
Ping
I am not disputing any statement.
However a mess like the current situation should not be fixed via cold turkey.
For example, I think outlawing seed holdback for farmers who used genetic seed is a prudent course. If a farmer paid for and grew the crop, the product of that crop is theirs to use. (The real reason the EU is outlawing genetic seed, imo.)
Finacially farmers are a unique entity. Even in bankruptcy they have their own chapter, Chapeter 12 is just for farmers.
Perhaps we should pay the UN with food for their feed the poor programs. A food for food program.
A distorted farm economy is bad for everyone - everyone pays more in taxes to support it, and it is unsustainable for the farmers. They become a parody of a real business, and they start voting stateist, because they suckle at the government teat.
Best to cut the subsidies and endure the dislocatons. It is cheaper than keeping on with subsidy spending that only delays the day of reconing.
When did the WTO represent Christianity?
I assume you are referring to this statement: "inevitably butchers international competition from poor, underdeveloped states, many of which have nothing to sell but agricultural products"
How dare that nasty, evil America!
BTTT!!!!!!
The agriculture grown by American farmers which is subsidized, technologically sophisticated and efficient is not fertilized with human waste as is the food in poor, underdeveloped countries. Since we don't used human waste to fertilize our food, our immunities are different than the third world country peoples.
Remember the mess in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia to three Mexican produce firms? The Hepatitis A outbreak when it was determined that the green onions (scalions) were contaminated and had infected 575 people and causing 3 deaths,
CHRISTIANITY does not mean commiting suicide to help those who refuse to help themselves.
Psst Human fecal matter is not uncommon in Mexican groundwater.
There are other issues also contributing to this problem. Our agriculture is under extreme pressure from those who would "save the fish" and what ever other critter they can find over the production of food. The resulting regulations cause the cost of production to be much higher than the market price. Cheap goods coming in from 3 world countries are already cutting into our farmers lively hoods. I have articles showing a detriment to the raisin and asparagus industries. The same is happening with wheat, cotton and beef.
I advocate a system of free market environmental conservation that would take the pressure off our farmers and allow them to better compete in this global marketplace. If we take away the subsidies before solving our environmental problem, the same thing that happened to our logging industry will happen to our agriculture. If you think we are socialist now, just wait.
From what I can decipher, this paradigm-shifting giberrish turns the true, natural free market topsy-turvy, upside-down, inside-out and bass-ackwards by imposing a bureacraticly fabricated artificial "free market" to run roughshod over the one that evolves more naturally. A true free market doesn't need such convoluted and complex nonsense.
You'll have to take that up with the author.
Food costs in the U.S. are artificially low. That isn't a good thing, either. Stuff should cost what it costs in an environment with minimal distortions. That most accurately reflects what people want, and who should get paid what for providing it. I'd rather pay the farmer than pour money into a bureaucratic black hole.
Advertising your inability to comprehend a system that can be described on one page does merely reinforces your general reputation here as an economic incompetent.
From what I can decipher, this paradigm-shifting giberrish turns the true, natural free market topsy-turvy, upside-down, inside-out and bass-ackwards by imposing a bureacraticly fabricated artificial "free market" to run roughshod over the one that evolves more naturally.
Please describe how the proposed system is fabricated or bureaucratically imposed. It will be interesting seeing as you are the big fan of big buck socialist infrastructure, including transportation systems, water delivery, and electrical generation.
No, costs of production are atificially high. There is a difference. Government regulations for environmental protection are one of the main factors keeping costs high. Cheap food coming in from 3rd world countries who do not have such costs are snapped up by consumers leaving our farmers to sell at below production prices. This is the problem that needs to be solved first or our agriculture will go the way of our logging industry.
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