Canada with global food shortages

[Tonington]

In Canada, US, AU, UK EU the land owner is the producer.

Bull $hit. Nearly half of American farmland is operated by someone other than the owner.
The Buck Stops Where? The Distribution of Agricultural Subsidies

The Buck Stops Where? The Distribution of Agricultural Subsidies


Barry K. Goodwin, Ashok K. Mishra, François Ortalo-Magné

NBER Working Paper No. 16693
Issued in January 2011
NBER Program(s): PE POL

The U.S. has a long history of providing generous support for the agricultural sector. A recent omnibus package of farm legislation, the 2008 Farm Bill (P.L. 110-246) will provide in excess of $284 billion in financial support to U.S. agriculture over the 2008-2012 period. Commodity program payments account for $43.3 billion of this total. Our paper is concerned with the distribution of these benefits. Farm subsidies make agricultural production more profitable by increasing and stabilizing farm prices and incomes. If these benefits are expected to persist, farm land values should capture the subsidy benefits. We use a large sample of individual farm land values to investigate the extent of this capitalization of benefits. Our results confirm that subsidies have a very significant impact on farm land values and thus suggest that landowners are the real benefactors of farm programs. As land is exchanged, new owners will pay prices that reflect these benefits, leaving the benefits of farm programs in the hands of former owners that may be exiting production. Approximately 45% of U.S. farmland is operated by someone other than the owner. We report evidence that owners benefit not only from capital gains but also from lease rates which incorporate a significant portion of agricultural payments even if the farm legislation mandates that benefits must be allocated to producers. Finally, we examine rental agreements for farmers that rent land on both a cash and share basis. We find evidence that farm programs that are meant to stabilize farm prices provide a valuable insurance benefit.
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[ironsides]

Yes...that's what I said.

That is plain retarded. If you remove subsidies, making it possible for people once again to be able to afford to grow food for themselves, then you, we, do not have to feed the world. There will always be some who need food, like areas hit hard by droughts, but leaving subsidies in place ensures that farmers elsewhere cannot afford the basic inputs, farmer who would otherwise be able to farm.

You're in denial.

No one is stopping people from growing food for themselves, last I heard you could grow what ever you wanted for personal consumption. In a world that is starving, you will have to grow what will help those starving people, or let them have a Soylent Green style world. That will need the support of subsidies in order for us to survive a little longer with regular food. The only other option will be a world wide war over food. Oil rich countries cannot eat oil or sand.

 

[petros]

No one is stopping people from growing food for themselves, last I heard you could grow what ever you wanted for personal consumption. In a world that is starving, you will have to grow what will help those starving people, or let them have a Soylent Green style world. That will need the support of subsidies in order for us to survive a little longer with regular food. The only other option will be a world wide war over food. Oil rich countries cannot eat oil or sand.

There is no shortage of food. Just a shortage of customers with money to buy it.

 

[Unforgiven]

Have you seen all the fat people? Food shortage? Pull your head out son.

 

[polaris]

:roll:

Subsidies are market manipulation. And this form of market manipulation hurts the poorest nations. The subsidized EU, US, Canadian farmers aren't that efficient at producing their goods. The governments artificially makes them more efficient than competitors. Who would rush to compete with someone who has stacked the deck against you? That's the answer to Captain's question. If the trade barriers are removed, then producers in devleoping nations aren't competing against production prices kept artificially low by government spending. Some analysts have estimated that this lop-sided trade arrangement ensures developing nations in need of about $50 billion worth of food from other countries, food they could be producing in their own nations, and selling like everyone else does. They can't afford the same level of subsidies that a US Farm Bill produces.

In 2010, net cash farm income in the US is close to $90 Billion.

One wonders if the new Congress, intent on cutting spending, will remove these market interfering subsidies.

Yeah right, the GOP just took back many of the farm districts!

What's more perverse? Corn is the lions share winner of the agricultural subsidies, and nations like Canada and the US are mandating higher blends of ethanol in the gasoline at the pumps. The majority of which comes from ethanol distilled from corn, by huge companies like ADM, Cargill, etc. Even more perverse, these huge companies could glut the market with more corn than small co-op distilleries could, and then force out the smaller US farmers as well, and consolidate the industry.

Food for gasoline.

You're correct.

farming subsidies to the Corporate Cargill type of north american agriculture is yet another example of handing taxpayer dollars to profitable corporations. Welfare for the wealthy....We'll have to cut back on school budgets and employment programs to maintain those profit margins....

 

[Bar Sinister]

I'm not holding my breath over any food shortages. What famines have occurred in the last fifty years have all been due to an inability or people to afford the cost of food or disruptions caused by wars or social upheavals rather than any actual shortage. As for the US (especially California) running out of water so-called "experts" have been making that prediction for decades without the slightest slowing down in agricultural production. In fact if the US were to practice water management technologies similar to that of Israel there would be not the slightest chance of the US facing any water shortage. I expect that might take place once the cost of water in the US reaches more realistic levels. The only factor that might actually upset the balance is global warming, however that is a factor that is almost impossible to predict.