A backstory

[nancylebov]

Unfortunately, a lot of people (especially Michael Pollan) see this sort of thing, and they conclude that the best solution is to subsidize veggies.

This time, for sure!

Link thanks to andrewducker.

Addendum: I'm surprised that so much more of the subsidies go to meat and dairy than to grains, since most of what I hear about is corn subsidies.

The chart may not include that the price floor for sugar acts as an indirect subsidy for corn syrup.

The food pyramid just indicates that the government policies are inconsistent-- there's been a lot of disagreement about whether it's even close to optimal nutrition.

Comments

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Explain, please--why would it be a bad thing to subsidize vegetable farmers? Are you just thinking "no more farm subsidies"? Because at the moment I see most of the vegetables in the grocery store are grown in a few places, and to get local ones you have to, like, look for them. Or join a CSA.

Is it not a good thing to subsidize farming? Don't we have a public interest in maintaining our capacity to grow our own food?

[madfilkentist]

Any subsidy distorts the economy. Subsidies take money from people and redistribute it to the politically connected. The chart shows how that works. What it doesn't show is that the subsidies benefit big agribusinesses (the ones that can afford to lobby) at the expense of smaller farmers.

Foreign farmers are a bugbear. Why should we be afraid of imported food? Do we think the USA is going to come under siege and have to rely entirely on home-grown food for long periods of time?

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

It's clear from the chart that we're paying for big agribusiness, because I know that the things that are subsidized aren't grown on small farms. It sounds like you're arguing that all food subsidies must go to big agribusiness because that's the nature of subsidies. Maybe you're right, I don't know--they do have more lobbying power. I would love to see programs that favor smaller farms.

I don't know about fear of imported food. We're obviously not afraid of it. Doesn't it cost more in fuel to ship it, increasing our carbon footprint? How about the enjoyment of local flavors and the continued existence of local food culture? Which of course we don't get from big agribusiness, I'm not confused about that, and I understand that's not where farm subsidies currently go.

I wouldn't like to see the concept of farm subsidy totally disappear since food stamps is essentially a farm subsidy. (though wouldn't it be great if we had a program to feed poor people that wasn't based on subsidizing agriculture...)

[avram]

Except that food stamps aren't essentially a farm subsidy. That's one of the reasons I like them better.

Food stamps are spent through the marketplace. If food stamp recipients want to spend them on food from small farms instead of big agribiz, they can make that decision for themselves without having to go through Congress or a state legislature.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

It is administered by the Department of Agriculture under the Farm Bill. But you're right--no restrictions, it's WIC that has restrictions on what people can buy.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Is it difficult for small operations to set up to accept food stamps?

[avram]

Well, "stamps" is something of a misnomer, since the program switched over to EBT cards (like debit cards) a few years ago. It's currently called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. So I guess the retailer needs to have a card-reading setup.

Here's the application process for retailers, and here are the eligibility requirements.

[avram]

And here's some info about getting SNAP point-of-sale equipment for farmer's markets.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

My point was that it's very hard to predict how a big subsidy program will turn out. It's hard to knew exactly what needs to be subsidized. It's certain that people will game the system.

Also, because subsidies (unless they're totally corrupt) are going to be for simple, measurable traits, your best outcome is large quantities of low quality goods, as it becomes clear that either some important qualities are hard to measure or weren't included among what gets measured.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

This is a good explanation!