Hi All,
Hope you all enjoyed the sunshine in last
weekend. For the topic of this coming Thursday, I would like to discuss how do
policies on agriculture affect people’s life. Even though these policies are
determined by politicians and economists, which seems not related to us at all,
but the impact is huge on various perspective. For example, the one of the
reason for President Trump to win the votes in rural area is that, he claimed
to remove some policies and associations that restrict the agriculture
industries. For consumers, the price of food in the supermarket is associated
with the cost of the food production, and cost of the food production would be
affected by agriculture policies, like subsidies. For producers, like farmers,
their income is also associated with whether they are grow a subsidized crops,
which is more profitable than others. What’s more, maybe a surprise, government
also consider agriculture policy as a tool to fix poverty issues. By reading
the supplementary materials, I would like you to think about is US currently
doing a great job on agriculture policies, who are the winners and losers in
the effect of these policies, and how can these problems be fixed.
Supplementary Materials:
Milking taxpayers
by The Economists
This is an article introducing the fact that
some some farmers are receiving subsidies by growing less crops.
Poverty, Hunger, and US Agricultural Policy: Do
Farm Programs Affect the Nutrition of Poor Americans?
by American Boondoggle
This is a report evaluating the effect of
agricultural subsidy on food price, poverty and income distribution.
The Luckiest Nut In The World
by Emily James
This is a amusing eight minutes video showing
how policy affect the fate of two different nuts.
Please share any thoughts or stories that are
related to agricultural market and policies (domestic policy like tax and subsidy, trade
policy like tariff and quota).
(Acknowledgement: the post
structure is based on Francisco’s Post.)
Thanks Ke, for selecting our materials and leading class this week!
ReplyDeleteEconomic policies are, I have to admit, far outside of my realm of knowledge. I’ve never taken any sort of real economics class. (I’m choosing not to count my one class in ninth grade, since I can’t remember anything about it.) As a result, I think that I often fail to acknowledge or think about these sorts of issues. As we’ve talked about in class before (relating to biology), sometimes not being an expert in a particular discipline or area can make it feel difficult to enter into conversations.
Although I’m sure that policy can be a force for good when it comes to farming, agriculture, and the environment more broadly, I’m struggling to think about policy in positive terms right now. Given the current presidential administration, I have little to no faith that American farming policies in the next few years will have a positive impact on people, either in the United States or in the larger world. This is an administration that (alongside literally hundreds of other despicable things) purged all references to climate change from the official White House website, claims that “for too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry,” and frankly, does not care about science or education. I’m trying to be optimistic, but it’s difficult. This leaves me wondering – how do we push for policies that will have a positive impact? What kinds of policies should we be supporting in order to create a more sustainable system for food, both from an environmental perspective and an educational one?
When I was reading through the AEI report, I found myself thinking a lot about the intersections of race, class, and food access. The AEI argues that farming subsidies and other such programs don’t have a significant impact on poor Americans, claiming that these subsidies typically benefit those who are (comparably) wealthy. The AEI is much more conservative than I am, and there’s a lot that I disagree with politically. But reading through this report did make me think about the role that subsidies play in our current farming system. What role can subsidies play in developing a more just food system? How can we use them to invest in marginalized communities and invest in a new generation of farmers? What would it look to more carefully consider how subsidies interact with issues of poverty and food access?
My knowledge of government polices especially economics are sadly not vast. But from the supplemental posts I would have to say they are in need of help. The way the systems are set up do not benefit the people but only the people who are at the top. How could we waste so much money when people in our own country are starving? I believe that these policies wont change in the next four years and only hope that they do not worsen. Food poverty is a serious problem in the US as I said in my post and it seems no one really has a solution on how to combat it. I personally don't know how to fix this problem because it seems like we're so far deep. Also the people who are making the most money off of this don't want the current system to change. I wonder how better off we would be if the government didn't push for bigger farming and kept to small farming businesses.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing farm policy into our conversation, Ke! I'll respond in more detail tonight when I have time, but I just read through the American Enterprise Institute article--lots of interesting statistics and information there. Really looking forward to digging in and talking about the impacts and implications of the information they present.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunatly my knowledge of government policies, tariffs, subsidies, and economics in general are very underdeveloped. One Econ 101 class did not accurately prepare me for the real world. However, I did find these sources to be pretty interesting; I especially liked the video about ground nuts and peanuts because although it was really odd and funny, it explained the situation in simpler terms and with clearer examples. It made me consider the different food industry monopolies in America. The AEI report did a really thorough job of outlining the issues with today’s policies regarding agriculture and farming that I had not previously been aware of. The article covered a lot of things in detail, but several things stood out to me, the first being that the most labor-intensive crops actually receive the smallest subsidy. Also, the general fact that all the farm programs are not assisting low income family; I was shocked to read that some of these policies are actually raising the consumer prices of items instead of lowering them. A little further into the article the author made an important statement that I felt summarized the situation. He said, “Today, however, farm subsidy programs are clearly not poverty programs and cannot be usefully evaluated in that light. Farm commodity subsidies are also not food policy. We show that they have little influence on retail food prices in the United States. Finally, farm subsidies may indirectly influence food consumption patterns of low-income households through impacts on household incomes. However, these are surely small relative to many other governmental and market economic factors (page 9).” I am curious to hear more about this topic during our discussion tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteTo echo the sentiments of others who have already commented for this week, I am not super well versed in the current agricultural economy policies in the US today. However, after reading Ke’s supplemental material, and from what I do know about the modern day food industry, they are not doing a great job by any measure. The consistent sharp subsidizing of certain monocrops, such as corn and soybeans, has made agricultural practices homogenous and unsustainable, not to mention that they put corn (typically in the form of corn syrup) in just about all our food now despite its lack of the nutritious value. Agricultural subsidies were created as a part of the New Deal in order to help some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country, the small scale farmers. However, over time the policy has been manipulated into benefiting only giant, monolithic mega-farm corporations and no longer in any way benefits the very people it was meant to. I don’t have an answer to how these problems can be fixed, but I think spreading awareness about the fact that these issues even exist is an essential first step.
ReplyDeleteUSDA’s farm programs benefit farmland owners and operators of large farms, and few of those farmers or operators are poor. It is the small farmland owners and operators and the farm employees that are at risk of living in poverty and needing food assistance but receive no benefits from the farm programs. This reminds me of Medicare where there are people who make too much for Medicare but not enough to pay their medical bills. Farm subsidy programs also increase agricultural production in marginal lands, which has environmental consequences for the land and the rural population. Subsidy programs or programs intended to aid a population need to be thought through thoroughly, with an end goal in mind and then set up processes of how to achieve that goal. If the government were to set up programs that ensure all citizens are well nourished they would benefit the productivity of the economy.
ReplyDeleteAgricultural policy is so complex that I’m struggling a bit to decide where to focus my response! Maybe I’ll start by responding to the nut video, since my response to that isn’t as complicated as to the AEI article. This wasn’t the focus of the film, but I thought the section on Senegal and how that country’s focus on “maximizing productivity” by growing vast quantities of groundnuts for export was a great example of how “maximizing productivity” in the narrow, conventional sense often leads to maximizing insecurity. It’s one of the ironies of our global economy that some of the world’s agricultral regions are food insecure, even as they produce quantities of commodity crops for export. When you rely on the marketplace to feed you, you surrender your sovereignty over your food supply and are subject to the fluxuations of that marketplace. The end of the video seemed to celebrate American wealth and power in a way that made me uncomfortable, though. Senegal (and the other countries mentioned) haven’t had the wealth and power necessary to set up protections for their farmers in the global marketplace the way the film describes the US doing (and we could talk about the role colonialization played in that!)—and the film seems to pretty much be saying “sucks for them; good for us” rather than really looking at why that’s the case and what responsibility the US might bear for the economic well-being of nations such as Senegal.
ReplyDeleteI found the AEI article more interesting that I thought it would be! I don’t agree with all of their conclusions—or rather, I think their own statistics paint a much more nuanced picture of the state of agricultural subsidies than simply to state that these subsidies do not impact the economic and nutritional well-being of low-income Americans. They are correct, I think, at the bottom of page 27, where they state that this is by design. Not only do most farm subsidies go to large producers of commodity crops, farm policy since the 1970s has been deliberately designed to force small farmers out of business and to consolidate control over agricultural production in fewer, larger farms—that less than 2 percent of US households are farming households is not an accident, nor is it because people just decided they didn’t want to farm anymore. Ag policy created economic conditions that made small-scale farming untenable.
I found the statistics on pages 19-21 particularly interesting. That 3.3 percent of farms produce most of the food grown in the US (and receive most of the subsidies) while 45.4 percent of farm households rely on an off-farm income source and half of all farms are grossing under $10,000 should paint a pretty clear picture of the economic landscape that our “get big or get out” agricultural policy has created. The section on page 21 on “socially disadvantaged farmers” and the mismanagement of OAO funds is worth noting as well. There is a well-documented history of agricultural discrimination in the US against people of color, including restrictions on land ownership and denial of agricultural loans. That people of color comprise a very small percentage of farm owners in the US (as opposed to farm laborers) is not an accident.
I could go on, but I’ll save some things to say in class! I guess the questions I want to close on, though, are the ones that I brought up in regards to the seed industry. They apply to ag policy too: Who is in control? Who is being controlled? Who is benefiting? Who is being used?
Regarding agricultural policies, many farmers are being negatively affected by these placed policies. Many farmers, who are often poor, are not benefited from growing food. Instead, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, even through the farmers are doing important work through farming. There should be more policies in place that helps to give farmers more rights and benefits when they grow foods to make a profit. Furthermore, peanuts for example, in the United States are thriving. However, in other countries, farmers who grow nuts do not have the same rights and policies. For these reasons, there is injustice regarding what farmers benefit from growing certain foods. Unfortunately, I don’t have specific stories that I know of that relate to the agricultural market and policies.
ReplyDeleteI am, by no means well versed in talking about food subsidies etc. One of the main things that has stuck with me for a while is that many subsidies are awarded to farmers who grow crops that are used widely or in abundance. I am referring to corn and also large scale farming practices. I remember viewing a documentary that specifically talked about some of the difficulties in trying to compete with large farms. I also recall the story that Amy shared about having to get out of the dairy business due to large scale farming that is mainly specialized in a certain resource. I believe that the other blog post coincide with this on in terms of intersectionality through a solution. By creating pro-food conservation policies and promoting smaller scale farming in a variety of plants and species. We will ultimately benefit in terms of diversity and more fresh and healthy food.
ReplyDeleteEconomics is an area where I blankly stare at a screen and try to make sense of words that I know separately, but not together in the particular order. I ended up reading through the articles with a separate page opened on the side to look up terms. I mean I had an idea of what “subsidy” meant, but the term seems more nuanced and expanded within this article and I wanted to make sure I had it right.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think I still have it “right” and I am excited for the discussion tomorrow; however, what gets me, again, how we managed to screw up a system that was intended to do good. In the paper, it stated that the modern farmer subsidy originated from the New Deal, which I understand was to help the impoverished country during Franklin Roosebelt’s time. Now, again, I only know the bare minimum, so any social implications if there are any with this (ie. if marginalized communities had access to help like this, etc) - not a clue. But the New Deal was intended to help - and here we are again.
For economic aspect winner and loser is strictly consider in Trade and game theory. While for my response I will make it not that professional in my response. It is a trade between all customers and farmers. While now farmers are more "controlled" by big agricultural companies. The agricultural policy looks good in some ways. However, it caused many farmers are not able to make more money through raising groups. The invisible hands pushed farmers away from their lands. That is one of the factors processed urbanization.
ReplyDeleteLike Amy mentioned in her response, Agricultural policies are complex. For my aspects, I do not think there is a way to fix that. It is based on Economics regulation and the policies effects are limited. It is a complex issue relate to both microeconomics and macroeconomics. We cannot ignore the customer issue. The only thing we can do is to support what we think is right.
Something that I aways think about when I consider policies related to the agricultural market are corn subsidies. I've talked about this on this blog before, but Food Inc has been fairly transformative in my learning about food system related issues. I watched it once in my 11th grade history class as a part of a discussion about our food systems affects on rural america and my teacher spent maybe a week of classes talking about corn subsidies and how they're artificially keeping corn prices down and driving international corn farmers out of business, and they're becoming the mother of all mono-crops, and how corn is in essentially everything we consume! The fact he shared that has always stuck with me, and I don't even know if it's true, is that the US subsidizes Brazilian corn. It was explained to me that Brazil's corn industry was being flooded by cheap US corn and that was hurting their producers, so they were going to take the US to court, specifically the World Trade Organization, over their excessive corn subsidies. Rather than let that happen, and potentially reduce their domestic subsidies the US now subsidizes Brazil's corn the same way. Typing this out now, I have no idea if this is true, but at the time it was a shocking revelation and really illustrated to me how falsely conceived our food industries are.
ReplyDeleteLike most other people on this post, I am not knowledgeable about subsidies or policies that affecting agriculture and food prices. Reading much of the content was actually a bit challenging for me as some of the terms and concepts are not well-known to me. However, what I found very interesting was the mention that sugar and added-sugar products prices are higher because of trade barriers that don't allow sugar to enter as freely into the market, which is surprising to me because it seems like the most sugar-containing foods available in the market are actually the cheapest. It leads me to wonder how local food subsidies and trade policies vary in their implementation, and thereafter their affect on the economies, as well as the price of production, including the value of local farming techniques & the humans that do them, as well as the product.
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