Comments on: Missed Opportunity in Agricultural Subsidies

By: Jim S

Jim S — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 07:08:16 +0000

I think subsidies should be eliminated while a viable system for true crop loss insurance is maintained. That way if a profitable crop can be produced in good weather a farm can get along without any assistance. Natural disasters of any type that cost a farmer his crop (or drastically reduce it) would be covered so he wouldn’t be driven out of agriculture by them. In addition if biofuels take off you’ll see a major resurgence of agriculture although it might just be proper harvesting of switch grass or other crops more effective at producing ethanol than food. Since these wouldn’t be food crops they should be less expensive to produce because of reduced need for insecticide.

By: Paul in Austin

Paul in Austin — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 18:22:27 +0000

I agree that this is just one of many under uses of our resources and clout to make the world safer and more prosperous.

One of my frustrations with the Blogosphere is the lack of action oriented discussions to sort through the pros and cons of various remedies.

By: BeYourGuest

BeYourGuest — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:59:20 +0000

Paul–

In my opinion, this is the great unappreciated story of our time. We could be fixing the future right now. Or we could keep ignoring it, with–I believe–results that will eventually become similar to what is happening with oil. “We can Sun Tzu ‘em today, or Clausewitz ‘em years from now,” as Barnett puts it.

The Washington Post has been running a series of articles called “Harvesting Cash” for several months. The archive of those articles is HERE.

Thanks so much for covering this.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:19:58 +0000

You know what’s ironic?

Remember that post about Marijuana being the highest cash crop in the US?

The funny thing is that Marijuana is pretty much the only non-subsidized agricultural product in the US (if you don’t count price inflation caused by its illegality) and it still out does all of the other subsidized crops…

Priceless…