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Message
Corn farmers as welfare queens
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:42 am
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:42 am
Funny no one ever talks about repealing FDR’s Farm Act.
Remember, our fuel is also mandated to have worthless ethanol added (Has Trump talked about that?).
MN pales in comparison to the farm grift
quote:
Corn was the most-subsidized crop in 2024; corn farms received $3.2 billion, or 30.5% of all federal farm subsidies.
Remember, our fuel is also mandated to have worthless ethanol added (Has Trump talked about that?).
MN pales in comparison to the farm grift
This post was edited on 1/9/26 at 10:44 am
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Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:47 am to weagle1999
Its the same subsidies that are ultimately putting farmers out of business and into the hands of giant companies. And making ag land unaffordable for new farmers.
I'm sure ill get lectured by somebody on the matter but the government dumping money into any industry its going to eventually sink it.
I'm sure ill get lectured by somebody on the matter but the government dumping money into any industry its going to eventually sink it.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:51 am to Purple Spoon
quote:
f business and into the hands of giant companies. And making ag land unaffordable for new farmers.
Anytime someone prefaces their statement with "big" or "giant," you can presume their argument is worthless. Make the same argument about beer industry consolidation. Tell me what ABInBev did you your favorite craft Hazy IPA, go on.
Stop all subsidies and price controls. We wouldn't have HFCS in everything without them. If Iowa wasn't the first primary, no politician would give a shite about them.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:54 am to LemmyLives
quote:
Anytime someone prefaces their statement with "big" or "giant," you can presume their argument is worthless. Make the same argument about beer industry consolidation. Tell me what ABInBev did you your favorite craft Hazy IPA, go on.
I don't follow you.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:59 am to weagle1999
quote:
Corn farmers as welfare queens
I'm not a farmer or from a farming family, unless you call a small beef herd 10 years ago a farmer, but if you don't subsidize production of food, people quit growing it when prices are down enough. Farmers with quit or go belly up.
Then less product in the market.
Then prices go up because of supply.
Then we pay triple for corn products than we used to.
The exact same situation is why beef is high. Our family quit messing with them when it became not profitable to do so. Well.... it was never really "profitable" at all. It was a tax write off for everyone's actual business. When my uncles and dad retired... no more tax write off needed and cattle is an expensive hobby. The cows were sold and we now run the flail mower over the 70 and adjacent 75 acres the cows used to keep mowed down themselves.
Repeat that story thousands of times and then poof... beef doubles and triples in price.
So in this case:
This post was edited on 1/9/26 at 11:02 am
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:00 am to Purple Spoon
Of course you don't. Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Meatpacking, it's the same argument with you people. Little guy can't ... insert whine here. Funny how a 90 year old law is being referenced as if it's somehow radically transformed in the last 20 years.
Consolidation is natural, and usually done for the sake of efficiency, which lowers the cost to consumers. It's precisely why ConAgra was founded 75 years ago.
Consolidation is natural, and usually done for the sake of efficiency, which lowers the cost to consumers. It's precisely why ConAgra was founded 75 years ago.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:17 am to LemmyLives
You seem emotional.
What I said was that the little farmers do not realize that the subsidies that they lobby for is the same subsidies that are putting them out of business.
Hope that helps.
What I said was that the little farmers do not realize that the subsidies that they lobby for is the same subsidies that are putting them out of business.
Hope that helps.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:30 am to CleverUserName
I used to work in financial derivatives, and the problem you outline seems like it would be addressed through futures trading.
I know large farming operations trade futures and other derivatives heavily, but do smaller midsize farmers do this?
Is the derivatives market insufficient at mitigating price fluctuation risk?
I know large farming operations trade futures and other derivatives heavily, but do smaller midsize farmers do this?
Is the derivatives market insufficient at mitigating price fluctuation risk?
This post was edited on 1/9/26 at 11:31 am
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:38 am to AllbyMyRelf
quote:
I know large farming operations trade futures and other derivatives heavily, but do smaller midsize farmers do this?
Is the derivatives market insufficient at mitigating price fluctuation risk?
Small farmers? Very rarely or pretty much none. Most small farmers couldnt define a derivative.
Medium size? Again. Probably fairly rare. They would have to be very proactive and seek out a firm to pretty much handle every aspect of that.
Bottom line with these smaller guys is that they want zero risk in something like that. You sit down and explain it and before you get into the crux of the discussion, they are already out.
It may be different in the Midwest, Texas, Etc. I'm only speaking to the ones I have knowledge of.
This post was edited on 1/9/26 at 11:42 am
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:39 am to Purple Spoon
quote:
Its the same subsidies that are ultimately putting farmers out of business and into the hands of giant companies. And making ag land unaffordable for new farmers.
Not exactly. What's crushing farmers is the processors/middle-men having consolidated over the years to where, depending on the crop, you may have only one buyer in a region. Little to no competition at that level means farmers get hosed even while prices at the grocery stores and restaurants increase.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:41 am to CleverUserName
Gotcha. The derivatives market is insurance on commodity prices if used correctly. Seems like the smarter farmers would use it.
But again, I’m not a farmer—maybe some are and it’s just not sufficient in some way.
But again, I’m not a farmer—maybe some are and it’s just not sufficient in some way.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:44 am to AllbyMyRelf
quote:
Gotcha. The derivatives market is insurance on commodity prices if used correctly. Seems like the smarter farmers would use it.
Oh yea. That's right. But you start dipping into something like that and they get skeptical. Just by nature.
Again, I can't speak for anyone outside of the area. It may be the norm in Texas, etc.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:46 am to weagle1999
Most of the planet is a two-season bad weather event away from famine.
Subsidizing corn to have the capacity in an emergency is a strategic move.
Subsidizing corn to have the capacity in an emergency is a strategic move.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 11:58 am to weagle1999
quote:
Corn farmers as welfare queens
I have a biased view, because I am a farmer, but I don't think this is totally fair. The entire industry is propped up by subsidies, not just the farmer. In a lot of cases, the farmer is just a filter of this money on its way to seed, chemical, fertilizer dealer and manufacturers, banks, equipment dealers and manufacturers, landowners, etc.
I agree it's not the prettiest thing, but how do you unwind it? If you cut the ethanol mandate, corn's going from $4.75 to like $2.50/bushel, and every other large scale production ag commodity will collapse in a similar fashion because of supply/demand. Will this make variable inputs decrease? Definitely, but by how much?
Equipment costs will also be impacted.
And then, probably most importantly for the people controlling the real money, all of a sudden a person or investment group that bought land for $7500/ac, is now realizing a significantly diminished ROI. They're not producing enough rental income to pay their mortgage on the land (much less pocket a little cash) and their asset is worth $3-4000 all of a sudden. How do you reconcile that?
It's messy for sure, but I'm just saying these subsidies fund a lot more than just the farmer.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 12:05 pm to weagle1999
Can we at least start with repealing the requirement for ethanol in gasoline?
Posted on 1/9/26 at 12:12 pm to AllbyMyRelf
derivatives ~ CME Futures/Options on Feeder Cattle and Live Cattle work well for feeders/preconditioning/starting and live cattle/slaughter, but not so much for cow/calf herds. From my memory, CME Feeder contracts are for 50,000#'s of 800# steers and Live contracts are for 50,000#'s of 1250# steers. A medium size cow/calf herd locally is about 30 to 50 calves (steers and heifers) that will be sold anywhere from 300# to 700#. No real avenue for hedging...
Posted on 1/9/26 at 12:24 pm to Bleezy
I think you’re right for cattle related products, but doesn’t CME have micro contracts for other ag futures like wheat, corn, etc?
Posted on 1/9/26 at 12:26 pm to prostyleoffensetime
You start by unwinding the corporate cartels that are working together to raise prices. Break up the concentrated market sectors in fertilizer, chemical, seed, etc. companies, just like we should have done long ago with meat packing. Something is fricked up when fertilizer traders are anticipating price hikes as soon as Trump floats the idea of the latest bridge payment program - the shite is all priced based on what they know the farmers can pay, and they know the government is going to make up any differences anyway.
Immediate and indefinite halt on mergers and acquisitions in Big Ag while that is all done. Stop the revolving door from those big companies' board room to the USDA and back. While we're at it, seriously reform the CRP programs that take subpar land away from cattle ranchers, find a way to let that get grazed by nature's fertilizing machines. I'd say end the General Partnership loophole but it's too late as the Big Beautiful Bill already codified that.
Picking any one issue and working to fix it would be a start, but our dipshit politicians always revert back to bailouts because that's what the retards at American Farm Bureau tell them to do, so they can make big money on their investments into the big companies.
Immediate and indefinite halt on mergers and acquisitions in Big Ag while that is all done. Stop the revolving door from those big companies' board room to the USDA and back. While we're at it, seriously reform the CRP programs that take subpar land away from cattle ranchers, find a way to let that get grazed by nature's fertilizing machines. I'd say end the General Partnership loophole but it's too late as the Big Beautiful Bill already codified that.
Picking any one issue and working to fix it would be a start, but our dipshit politicians always revert back to bailouts because that's what the retards at American Farm Bureau tell them to do, so they can make big money on their investments into the big companies.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 12:27 pm to weagle1999
My grandfather raised Bright and Burly tobacco in West Virginia from the 1930s through the 1990s. His crop was generally the one that set the prices at market each autumn. Because it was federally subsidized, he was paid so much by Uncle Sam because he was federally limited to how many acres of tobacco he could produce each year. He was not particularly fond of receiving a check from the government for crops he didn't grow since he fully realized that he could have made significantly more if he had been allowed to farm whatever acreage of tobacco the market would support.
Corn is much the same way. About 40-45% of corn grown in the US goes to animal feed and another 40-45% goes to mandated biofuels. (The mandate for ethanol in fuel is a huge "subsidy" corn farmers receive from Uncle Sam.) Gasoline mixed with ethanol is less efficient and produces more pollutants than pure petroleum products. It also costs more to produce than ethanol-free gas despite the difference at the pump may lead one to believe.
Government regulations have been hamstringing the wealth producers in this country for longer than pretty much any of us who are alive can remember.
Corn is much the same way. About 40-45% of corn grown in the US goes to animal feed and another 40-45% goes to mandated biofuels. (The mandate for ethanol in fuel is a huge "subsidy" corn farmers receive from Uncle Sam.) Gasoline mixed with ethanol is less efficient and produces more pollutants than pure petroleum products. It also costs more to produce than ethanol-free gas despite the difference at the pump may lead one to believe.
Government regulations have been hamstringing the wealth producers in this country for longer than pretty much any of us who are alive can remember.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 1:32 pm to weagle1999
Yep, makes me livid, we need to be subsidizing Meat/Dairy.
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