[Arsenal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'E')ntitlements for the rich?

[VMarcHart]

I've been hearing about food crisis since the early '70s, including this summer's warnings with $4 diesel and floods in Iowa.

Whereas I'm convinced one day it will hit us for real, I smell another cry wolf. TBD. I'll buy another can of beans just to be on the safe side.

[dohboi]

+1 for pup's comment. Please do elaborate.

Through Democratic as well as Republican administrations both, red rural areas have been the recipients of incredible quantities of public largess. I don't think that is always all necessarily bad if it actually helped farmers do the right thing. But the main goal of ag policy in this country seems to be to enrich ADM, Monsanto and their ilk. I doubt this is going to change any time soon, more's the pity.

And thanks for the great maps, cur. I love good maps.

[TreeFarmer]

When you guys knock the politicians for the farm subsidies you need to consider one thing.

Hungry people will turn out to vote. Want to lose an election? Let there be hunger and every incumbent will be running against a challenger who will be blaming him for the problem.

A necessary but not sufficient condition for re-election is make sure there is plenty of food.

TF

[wisconsin_cur]

It is not the use of subsidies for food it is the type of food (processed) which receives artificial support. This provides big profits for the processor and poor health for the eater.

We could subsidize carrots, fruits, poly-culture farms or even go back to the old way of supporting farm prices (loans instead of guarenteed min prices per bushel) which would lead to a more sane production model.

Some type of political support is a good idea. It is the specific model which primarily benefits the processors that is the problem.

[pup55]

NYT/Open Letter from Michael Pollan

The board dwellers might be interested in this recent article in the NYT on this topic, which does quite a good job of reviewing the history of this sort of thing.

Just another example of the intended and unintended consequences of using the tax code and other subsidies to modify behavior, rather than raise money for the government.

The result is a nation where half of the dogs in the country are overweight, the leading causes of death are food-induced, and it is literally cheaper to buy California peaches in Wal-mart in Peach County GA, than the local peaches, right in the middle of the local peach season.

Meanwhile, the little towns all over the country get depopulated as the percentage of the population involved in agriculture gets smaller and smaller.

Silly humans.

[dohboi]

Again, great posts, cur and pup.

Does anyone see any chance that the new administration might work to start to set our upsidedown food policy on a saner footing?

[pup55]

Tom Harkin

Tom Harkin is one of the two US senators from Iowa, and is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and holds several other interesting committee assignments. He ran for president in 2000, under a platform of bringing back the New Deal, but could not get any traction. Kind of ironic, since we are back in the new deal era anyway.

During the 2008 election cycle, he managed to raise $8 million in "campaign contributions", about $1.5M of which was from "agribusiness" and also, the health care industry. Interestingly, most of his contributions were from lawyers of one kind or another because he is on some insurance committee. Top five contributors: Herbalife, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Texas Pacific corp (a "private equity" fund with investments in Del Monte Foods, Burger King and Harrah's Entertainment) and Cassidy and Associates a lobbying firm who has worked with the FDA and USDA in some capacities.

His poor Republican challenger only raised $58K in the last election. Harkin still has about 2 million left over.

I suppose it's possible that this guy will turn on his generous donors and allow the system to be overhauled, but I have to say, per the above, that his consitutents are used to getting a lot of benefits from the government, so it's not looking particularly promising. The state is small enough, that he could probably win the next several elections with what he has on hand, so he might try it.

However, he probably sees his job as two things: protecting the campaign donors that put him in office, and secondly, bringing back as much federal spending to his state as possible. Note that there is a difference between that and "doing what is in the long term beneficial interest of the citizens of the US".

Perhaps we should write him a friendly email, and see what he says. He only got about $90K from energy companies.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')u]Buck Up, Borrowers, Ag Credit Could be Harder to Obtain

...Land values, which account for almost $9 out of every $10 of U.S. farm assets, are beginning to show strain for the first time in more than 20 years, Kohl noted. Where borrowers needed only a 10 percent down payment on farm real estate purchases a few months ago, today they typically need new minimums of 35 percent to 40 percent, he added. What's more, many land auctions have stalled, due to lack of buyers in recent weeks....

[deMolay]

Yes it could. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=civilization-food-shortages

[mos6507]

According to Lester Brown, a figure well known in these circles. Sure, he's got a somewhat mainstream mouthpiece, but it would be nice to see content like this not come from the usual suspects.

[nobodypanic]

when the food deliveries stop, i am just going to go fishing. ridiculous you say! everyone else will too you say! well, i thought so too, but then i saw this video of how my fellow americans react when a simple fast food chain runs out of chicken:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e05_1240530506

[Pretorian]

There are were thousands of famines, let alone "food shortages" and how many civilizations/coun tries did they destroy?

[ralfy]

"Rising fossil fuel energy costs spell trouble for global food security"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 123354.htm

[Tanada]

It is bad when fuel costs negatively impact food prices. Sadly at the moment in Ohio water is the main concern with food prices. Grazing livestock are doing just fine, but staple row crops used for CAFO, yellow dent corn and soybeans in particular, are doing very poorly from a succession of fairly dry May weather followed by very wet June weather. We got substantial rain yesterday and are forecast to have thunderstorms overnight tonight once again.

There are crops that do fine under these conditions, unfortunately yellow dent corn and soy are not on that list. Most of the farmland around here is dense clay, even with many drainage tiles in a field drainage is slow. As a result some fields are nearly completely stunted, only those portions slightly higher than the rest are healthy. In at least one field I passed the other day was freshly tiled last year and the crop is healthy in stripes, about three rows on each side of the new tiles. The rest of the crop between the new tiles is yellowed and stunted.

Paradoxically grass fed beef in this area will be cheaper this fall because forage is plentiful, while CAFO beef will be more expensive because the crops used for that are going to be much higher, at least locally.