Stolen from Wikipedia ^.^
An agricultural subsidy is a governmental subsidy paid to farmers and agribusinesses to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the cost and supply of such commodities. Examples of such commodities include wheat, feed grains (grain used as fodder, such as maize, sorghum, barley, and oats), cotton, milk, rice, peanuts, sugar, tobacco, and oilseeds such as soybeans.
Some subsidies are positive - that is money is paid for increased production, while other subsidies are negative where tax revenues are given to farmers in exchange for not growing a particular commodity. Tobacco farmers in the U.S. state of North Carolina, for example, have recently been awarded tax-funds in exchange for not growing tobacco.I'm not going to quote all of Wikipedia, but you can read more if you like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy
Essentually, our goverment is in the bussiness of price fixing. We spend a average of 16 billion a year makeing sure that certain comoditys maintain a "minimum" price. The theory being, to help farmers. The problem is, it's not going to small impoverished farmers anymore.
"Direct payment subsidies are provided without regard to the economic need of the recipients or the financial condition of the farm economy. Established in 1996, direct payments were originally meant to wean farmers off traditional subsidies that are triggered during periods of low prices for corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, rice, and other crops."
Payouts are lopsided, with 1% of the farming comunity getting 17% of the subsitys. Part of that problem is that over the last 40 years farms have been consolidating into larger farms, owned by large firms instead of a family of farmers.
In the 1930s, about 25% of the country's population resided on the nation's
6,000,000 small farms. By 1997, 157,000 large farms accounted for 72% of farm
sales, with only 2% of the U.S. population residing on farms.
Personally, I don't see this as a bad thing. Farming was backbreaking work. And it still is. But it means that money originally designed to help some of our nations hardest working people, is being diverted to large companys.
Unlike the small farms before them, the new farms have much more bargening power and resources at their disposal. If they need more money from their crops, they can get it. However because of the subsidys, they have no real reason to bargain. If prices get too low, the goverment picks up the slack. As a result, they can drop prices more then would be able to naturally. Prices on things like Corn.
Corn is the top crop for subsidy payments, due in part to the fact that corn has uses aside from food and feed. US corn ethanol subsidies are between $5.5 Billion and $7.3 Billion per year, and US ethanol producers are protected from imports of cheaper Brazilian ethanol by a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff. Producers also benefit from a federal subsidy of 51 cents per gallon, additional state subsidies and, federal crop subsidies that can bring the total to 85 cents per gallon or more.[11] The 2005 energy law mandates that billions of gallons of ethanol be blended into vehicle fuel each year, guaranteeing demand.If you've ever wondered why Corn Syrup is in EVERYTHING cheep. This is why. Our goverment, is intentially keeping the price of corn super low.
Coupled with the fact that our goverment is handing out checks to people to NOT farm their land, the price of alternative, non-corn crops is being artifically pushed higher. While non-corn subsidys do help lowever these prices, the overall affect is that Corn, and products reliant on corn, are signifigantly cheeper then they should be. A fact reflected when you go to the stores and find an entire isle of of cheep, sugary snack foods chock full of corn syrup.
And the effect goes further. Cattle are no longer "grazed" on grass. They are corn fed. Chickens too. (Remember those "we're 100% corn fed" commercials from foster farms). As a result, Beef and Chicken are now as cheep, or cheeper then fish for the first time in history. Cheeses too. Cheese is down right CHEEP now.
Which brings us to another big benifactor of this mess. Fast Food. Cornsyrup, Beef and Cheese are the back bones of the fast food industry. Imagine if suddenly, they were more expensive then most other foods. Do you think the fast food industry woulda exploded the way it did?
They've created a situation where Corn Syrup, but Beef and Cheese pricing is disproportionatly low compared to other, healthier choices.
Then they wonder why our people are so fat, and our healthcare is so expensive.
I say throw out the subsitys. Let ethonal push the price of corn syrup up. And let non-corn foods go back down to their natural pricing. Cheep food won't be cheep anymore, but the price of fruits, vegatables and non-corn grains will come down.
We're used to having cheep, unhealthy food. But we're not going to starve when it's gone.
We just won't force our lower class to live on McDonalds and Hostess anymore.
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