7 Comments
Nov 13, 2022Liked by Dean V. Williamson

Thanks for your excellent article.

Governments around the world seem to have it in for farmers at the moment. Just look at Holland and New Zealand. Not just governments but NGOs like the RSPB, National Trust, Natural England all blaming farmers for every ill. I'm in the UK. Earlier on when Ukraine started and there were fears about wheat prices and shortages someone from the RSPB came on the radio to complain that farmers in the UK would be 'Profiteering', practically calling for a windfall tax. This at a time when fuel and fertiliser prices were rocketing. When we left the EU the subsidies for farmers changed so our Michael Gove responsible for agriculture came out with his slogan "Public money for public good". But public good does not include producing food. I know that direct food subsidies are probably not the best way to help farmers. The new subsidies mean that anyone with a bit of land could get the subsidy by doing practically nothing. They don't even have to produce food and it's worth noting that the RSPB is a big landowner in the UK.

It wasn't long ago that in Europe with farming subsidies we over-produced food. There were so called butter mountains, wine lakes and storage silos full of wheat apparently not required. I don't think direct farm subsidies are ideal but it at last showed that we can produce a lot more food if we have to.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, there is war on farming, and it is just one installment in a larger war on humanity.

The authorities have been telling us for 30-some years that carbon dioxide, which occupies about 0.004% of the atmosphere on a ppm basis, is bad. Now they tell us that nitrogen, nearly 80% of the atmosphere by volume, is bad.

Meanwhile, subsidies-not-produce is a phenomenon going back to at least the 1930's in the United States. These days, the bigger distortion may be incentives to substitute crops like wheat with corn. Ethanol requirements induce that.

Expand full comment

I like the idea of conventional meat. Isn't that just "meat"? Everything else is not meat.

I was pleased to hear that in France there are laws which prohibit meaty type descriptions for stuff that is not meat.

Expand full comment

In the back of my mind I see government subsidy and government funded research as generally quite inefficient without the incentive to create anything. The government might very well need to fund military research given no marketplace, but the rest has a market and competitive pressure to develop products the public will pay for. I'm participating in crowd funded work toward new battery technology and various efforts to improve agriculture via data and sensors. I see the newer vertical nearly self-contained greenhouses as a viable way to grow more with a smaller footprint while also getting closer to consumers. IMHO any government "help" comes with restrictions and too many hands involved.

Millet, bird seed, is not as healthy as many other grains. OK as a porridge, not as satisfying as rice. Somewhat of a last resort grain affirmed by fewer people eating it.

Expand full comment

The first one (Sarah Taber) sounds much more dangerous than the other, not just asking for unjustified subsidies, but the sort of stuff not out of place in the 1920s Soviet Union.

Also some bad economics in that one making comparisons between public utilities and agriculture which share little in terms of market structure, and so treating them in a similar way does not make sense.

Expand full comment
Jan 30, 2023·edited Jan 30, 2023

"Governance-by-subsidy may have a lot of intuitive appeal, but it puts us on the road to serfdom." Animal agriculture (meat) is and has been for generations, heavily subsidized by the U.S. government, us taxpayers. That's why it is cheaper than plant proteins. How about ending those subsidies, get the meat producers out of serfdom, and see what meat costs then? As a taxpayer, I would much rather subsidize plants than dead animal flesh.

Expand full comment
author

Sum'pn to that, brother.

It seems that all societies have heavily regulated and subsidized their agricultural sectors. Which is understandable given, historically, producers could experience very bad seasons or even a very bad sequence of seasons. Demands for the authorities to socialize the costs of bad seasons and to cushion the blows must have always been high.

Meanwhile, how about this: We get rid of all subsidies, and we eschew all Pigouvian taxes? That way, all products can compete in something that looks like an undistorted market.

Expand full comment