Why do we subsidize farming?

Question

I admit I am neither a farmer no an economist, but
can anyone imagine a scenario were farm subsidies
end without lots of farmers leaving the business?

1: We have too much farm capability for the economy
to support without subsidies.

2: We don't want to see thousands of farmers forced
into destitution because they can't get a good enough
price because of competition. We treasure the idea
of the "family farm".

Does this mean that we're going to be subsidizing
them forever? Is that what the taxpayer signed up for?

Surely we should be subsidizing them to change
crops to something more self sustaining or education
and training to pick another business.

Am I being cruel or realistic?

It will only get worse as the weather
destabilizes with global warming.
That is, there will be bumper crops
in some places and destitution in
others.

Isn't the nature of this job to assume
the risk of the weather and market place?

Are we saying that without subsidies,
there would be no farmers?

I am not against funding something
because it wouldn't happen otherwise
and we, as a society, value it (like the
arts). However, did we sign up to
perpetually fund an industry that could
survive by simply decreasing its
output capacity?

>why do farmers continue to farm?
>they love to do it, they have a huge amount
>of money invested in it, it is all they know how
>to do.
Personally, I think this is the crux of the issue.
Issues of economy and cost would be taken
care of by the free market (aren't we being
two faced if we socialize farming but
keep medicine unsocialized?).

If we withdrew subsidies:
1: The prices would crash as competition
forced people to compete to beyond what
the supply chain can handle.
2: Many farmers would go out of business.
3: Eventually, the number of farmers would
become suitable to the demand and they
would get reasonable prices.

"All they know how to do" isn't a
sufficient reason to maintain subsidies.
People are being forced to retrain in
just about every discipline you can name
to keep up with technology and global
markets. Why should farmers be immune
to this shift towards tenochracy?

tenochracy was supposed to be
technocracy. My fingers are apparently
asleep today.

Answer 1

it would take writing a book for me to explain all of the reasons for subsidies. in the interest of time and space, i will narrow it down to the most important reasons and briefly discuss them.

agriculture in the US is not just the farmers, it is tractor manufacutrers, fertilizer and chemical producers, food processing, equiptment sales and lots of other things. lots of people are employed by agriculture. if you lose farmers it is a domino efffect on lots of other industries.

agriculture is one of our biggest exports. exporting is very important to our economy.

it is important that we produce our own food supply. it is not good to be dependant upon other countries for something as necessary as food.

keping all of the above in mind, farming is a business that is very expensive to be in, land, equiptment and other inputs costs are very high. most farmers have high debt. farming is very weather dependant, bad weather conditions can ruin a crops. bad crops = no money= defaulting on loans= out of business. over time all farmers have a bad year every now and then. the subsudies help even out income to keep them in business.

would you work in a job where about once every 5 years you make zero money, even though you worked the entire year? not only could you make zero, you could lose lots. not a lot of people are interested in getting into this business because of this. we need to keep the ones that we have.

why do farmers continue to farm? they love to do it, they have a huge amount of money invested in it, it is all they know how to do.

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as was said above, subsudies keep prices from flucutating extremely. the public will pay either way. either subsudize or expect to have extremes, in prices or availability, of food. people in the USA would not be happy standing in bread lines for an hour or two.

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response to some additional details:

farmers are very limited in the choices of crops that they grow. most areas have 1 or 2 crops that will do well in their area. each plant had a narrow climate, soil type, and moisture amount that they can tolerate. the equiptment used in each crop is highly specialized and very expensive and is not easily interchangeable to use on other crops. examples- you are not going to sucessfully grow cotton in minnesota, you are not going to do well with alfalfa in the southeast. the areas where crops are grown have the infrastructure already there to process, store and market the local products. this is an interdependant relationship , between the farmers and processors, that has been developed over decades. it is not easily started up in any new area.

the government subsidizes to keep the food supply plentiful and at a relatively stable price. the amount of your tax money that goes to farm subsidies is miniscule compared to what you would spend for food without them.

it's hard to explain, but, this isnt like i work the checkout a walmart and if they dont pay enough i'll go to K mart tomorrow. most of these people have signed long term debt agreements for hundreds of thousands of dollars. it is not easy to just quit and walk away.

Answer 2

Analysis of the random risk in farming due to weather indicate that farmers, in a competitive market, would plant so the expected yield would meet the demand for food in an average year. This means that in bad years there would be food shortages and high prices so some people would not have enough to eat. Most countries choose to subsidize staples, so they are over produced, guaranteeing that even in bad years there is enough for everyone. Once the program is set up all farmers try to get something, and we end up subsidizing tobacco and cotton as well as food.

Answer 3

A lot of the farm subsidizes are to get farmers to produce less of certain crops , or because of the heavy regulations the federal government has put on them for production and trade ! Most farmers would have preferred that the federal government had stayed the hell in Washington and left them alone ! We fed not only this nation but many others as well. The epa has but so much restriction on farmers that it has become a nightmare ! We don't have more of them than we need we need less interference from the government , and fair trading laws !

Answer 4

I'm going to TRY to answer your question. I'm neither farmer or economist, but I've got friends who farm.
Farming is a lot like gambling. You're putting all this money into seed, equipment, fertilizer, and what-not and HOPING to make enough profit from your crop to feed your family and do it again next year. Unfortunately, stuff happens. Your crops (and therefore your livelihood) are completely dependent upon the weather. If it rains too much and your crops drown, you're screwed. If it doesn't rain enough you will have very little yield. Less plants, and smaller. The government decided, since we all need food, that they would help out the farmer so he could still afford to farm next year, even if this year was a bad one. I don't think its just any farmer that gets subsidies, either. I know none of my friends have got them.

Answer 5

You're missing the point. Farmers are subsidized in order to prop up supply, which in turn keeps the prices down, at least relative to what they would be without subsidization. If we eliminated subsidies, in the short term we would get much lower prices, but then that would be followed by long term shortages in most foods.
The demand is constant, everyone has to eat, the only variable we can influence is the supply.

Answer 6

subsidies were a very good idea when they were set up. we badly needed the crops to feed ourselves. Today, the do more harm than good. subsidies encourage first world farmers to grow crops better grown elsewhere on the planet - this keeps down the prices of those crops, therefore third world countries farmers, who don't get subsidies, can't make a decent livelihood.

If we were to phase out subsidies, we could buy food where it is cheaper to produce - i.e. tomatoes from africa, not italy or spain or belgium(!). Italian, spanish, and belgian farmers would be able to concentrate on higher margin crops, which aren't suitable for intensive agriculture, or can't be grown competitively in africa. More organic food, and such. It would be a win win situation. But farmers being very conservative by nature, the situation isn't going to change anytime soon. so they'll keep themselves chained to outdated and environmentally damaging agricultural practices

Answer 7

Any answer that lists all the costs of farming, the risks, the secondary and tertiary markets that are affected by farming - all of those answers manage to miss something terribly important.
That is that it is all just welfare. It's communism at work.

What would happen if the government did not use men with guns to take our property using threats of violence and prison to redistribute our property to agriculture?
Farmers would charge more.
They'd have to.
However, it would be enormously more efficient and less wasteful if they did just that and the subsidies were eliminated.

Answer 8

Subsidy for farm products is necessary. The returns are very poor compared to other products like engineering, chemical, petroleum etc.
They are at the mercy of nature.
More and less production both ruin them.
Water is the main ingredient / source which is scares.
Farm workers salary is increasing.
Transporting and preservation is becoming expensive.
So many reasons can be put forward.So subsidy is must.

Answer 9

Farmers in the UK and now Europe have always been subsidized. They are always complaining. God knows why they receive compensation for foot and mouth disease bird flu etc, anybody else would vaccinate against disease and/or pay insurance. They are even paid to grow nothing or crops we dont really need. Its about time they came into the real world - we could always import cheap food if they do not want to compete.

Answer 10

except maybe tobacco and dairy, most farmers (including my family) would like to see subsidies go, but the price we get for most grains (livestock is a different story) has not changed in 30 years while inputs have risen along with other prices. If you can figure out what to do....good luck!