Interesting Side Note: bleached/chlorinated chicken

The things which makes this a no go in the EU is ironically not the chlorination per-se, but the fact that chlorination is needed.

Like basically the EU thinks the way the US allows farmers to keep and raise chickens is so bad/unsanitary that chlorinating them isn't sufficient to make them safe for (repeated) consumption.

Which makes sense given that some of the things involved can lead to (non exhaustive list):

- non healthy chemicals _in_ the meat, not just on it

- increase in parasite, bacteria or virus infection _in_ the meat

- increased chance bacteria have some form of antibiotic resistance or other mutations

- not wanting to support "that" level of animal abuse (which is not just illegal but criminal in many EU countries, but also that doesn't mean that EU countries are that much better, they just drew a line on the level of animal abuse they tolerate which is in a different place then the line the US drew, but both are far away from the line animal protection organizations would drew)

    > bleached chicken

I Googled for more info, and I found this quote: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/15/nx...

    > Less than 5% of poultry processing facilities still use chlorine in rinses and sprays, according to the National Chicken Council, an industry group that surveyed its members. (Those that still do use a highly diluted solution at concentrations deemed safe.)

    > Nowadays, the industry mostly uses organic acids to reduce cross contamination, primarily peracetic, or peroxyacetic acid, which is essentially a mixture of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.

    > prevalence of GM crops

> look down on inferior products

I object to the use of "look down on" in this context.

The products listed are inferior products, end of.

"Look down" suggests an expression of contempt. But there is no contempt to be had here, it is a simple fact.

> bad farming practices would lead to very affordable food, then one could make an argument for it.

I ... just... I ....have no words for what I just read there.

Its affordable so its ok .... really ? SERIOUSLY ?

Looks like the healthcare system.

This does make the food much _cheaper_. You can buy food with high quality standards in the US but it is much more expensive. Most people in the US choose the cheaper option.

To a degree, those are also convenient excuses a country uses to protect their own food industries without being overtly protectionist. USA's agriculture industry can readily decimate the leaders in most other markets when they have to compete on price. Between the subsidies, lower standards, and sheer scale, it's practically impossible to compete.

If it was that simple farmers in the US could just voluntarily adhere to higher standards. It's not like those things are legally required.

>inferior products like HFCS, [...] prevalence of GM crops

The others I agree with, but there's no evidence that HFCS or GM crops are bad.

you do know those are industrial food manufacturing outcomes not farming outcomes? Ain't no one bleaching my families chickens, or giving their cattle growth hormones. Americans have been tricked and mislead by marketing and conglomerate, some of which is European.

Yes. It's very effective, very dangerous, and it's not at all unique to America; the exact same approach results in high-minority vote shares across Europe.

I think a lot of it comes down to the rural/urban divide, in a rural setting there's a lot less convinence, fewer services. A need to be more self suficcient. While urban settings have many amenities and services, they also tend to be hotspots for mental illness, crime, lack of housing for those who don't or can't make enough money to afford increasing rent and food costs, it's harder to police (more resources needed) illness from concentrated pollution. Theres some who see the conservative side of politics as fiscally conservative, and the liberal side aiming for more social support. This is a gross simplification of U.S. politics (I'm Canadian, we have a rural divide as well, take a look at how the urban Canadian centres vote vs rural, the difference is our party colours are backwards to yours!) So many rural folks see the tax bill and say "what do I get for this" and many urban folks see the need for stricter regulations, more social support etc. And say "We need more resources, let's throw money at the problem". Coming from a small town if you see someone in need it's not too burdensom to lend a hand, in a dense urban situation it's neccesary to turn your back on the many individuals and say this is a social problem that is more comfortable to abstract to the government to handle. Now subsides for farmers seem weird from my vantage point. On one hand the scale of operations for a farmer do seem lofty compared to my experience as an individual earner, I don't have to budget for sub $1M equipment upkeep/replacement etc. But on the other I'm not beyond considering "conspiracy theroies" like "sugar makes us more susceptable to influance, and lowers immune response, leading to higher healthcare costs" - bassically we are the product not the customer.

More importanly there's a rift between "I care" and "I'm paid to care" that's common for social support, just like it's common for the tech industry.

All this is an over simplification, but I'd love for us to do better as a whole. I think that starts with people using their empathy and curiosity to understand the divide. Maybe through understanding we can be less judgemental of each other and find ways to work together, or at least understand and build boundaries to make the divide more livable.

I think the public still has a wildly inaccurate picture of what a farmer is. When people think "Farmer" they still think of the romantic picture of 1930's Ma and Pa dressed up in work clothes, working the land like in American Gothic or some Norman Rockwell painting. So, of course we should help subsidize good ol Ma and Pa to live off the land! Be kind to these fictional figures in the painting!

The general public are not picturing "Farmer = billion dollar agri-business who's finance department is bigger than some small towns".

> All farmers are rich. You have to understand that "farmer" doesn't mean "someone who works on a farm". It means "someone who owns a farm".

Rich, as in richer than broke? I opened my farm business with a $15,000 (inflation adjusted) investment. That's a good chunk of change, but probably not what anyone is imagining as rich. The average household keeps more than that in their bank account. It is in the realm of something most can afford to do, if they are willing to stomach the high risk.

> If you own a farm today, it is because you were successful at the business of farming.

Even on day one of operating the business? Technically you own one, but if you are bankrupt tomorrow, was that really success in the business of farming? Surely there needs to be some kind of proving period at least?

> To be successful at farming in the last century, you need a lot of land.

Depends on what you want out of it. If your goal is to amass endless assets to sell when you retire, then yes, you need a lot of land (and a lot of debt). If your goal is to provide a tidy income, you can do quite well with a small acreage. And I don't mean some kind of market garden thing, although that is an option too. I mean even plain old commodity farming.

It's a lot like the software industry. You can forego a paycheque to try to build a startup that rains fortunes down upon you when you are ready to let go, or you can get a job that pays a decent salary but will never make you unfathomably rich. A farm that has achieved both isn't unheard of, but generally that requires many generations all having great luck. Not exactly the norm.

Of course, like the software industry, the "startup" sounds like more fun, so that is certainly where most farms try to go. Someone looking for a paycheque can find that doing any kind of job, so this group also needs to have a deep love for farming; not just an interest in finance like the former can attract.

> When Republicans talk about tax cuts (especially the estate tax), who do you think they're talking to? Farmers.

In my country there are exceptions carved out for farmers on that front. The public accepts it because "passing down the family farm" over "corporations buying it all" is considered a social good. Why do you think Republicans have to speak (and even apply, perhaps) in broad terms and not simply say "tax cuts for farmers only"? Do Republicans not like farmers? But if they didn't like farmers, why would they ("secretly") introduce tax cuts for farmers?

Voting for Democrats is the alternative.

If the Republicans get voted out and become powerless, they (or the successor party) will have to be better to regain power.

Anything else is some accelerationist nonsense.

i would love to hear Farm-To-Taber answering this. she, a farmer and farm worker, ran as a democrat. i really like and recommend her podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@FarmToTaber

she regularly does episodes about politics in regards to farming.

Democrats write constantly about trying to reach rural americans. I've never seen democrats meaningfully position themselves as the party for city dwellers. Instead I've seen democrats simply refuse to describe cities as hellholes full of crime, laziness, and sexual promiscuity like the republicans do.

> What is the alternative when the Democrats appear just as much beholden to corporate finance, and position themselves as the party for city dwellers?

For the love of God, please don't "both sides" this stuff.

When is the last time you took a look at the bills coming before Congress and how they were voted on? Like, literally go to the congressional website and view bills and vote tallies? Would you believe it if I told you stuff like "Prevent rich people from stealing wages from their workers" are voted SOLELY ON PARTY LINES.

In fact, we have the most divided congress in like 100 years. There has not been a point in the last century in which the 2 parties were so different.

Lastly, there are at least 50 Dems in congress right now who explicitly aren't beholden to corporate finance and regularly introduce bills to remove money from politics.

You are correct, no replies but people don't like your message.

I buy all this, and I think your analysis is spot on. There's z log of cognitive dissonance going on here.

>> One common theme has been that farmers are by necessity highly independent.

I think they like to think of themselves as highly independent. But in truth of course they are highly dependent, on city customers for their product, on foreign countries for exports, on federal govt for subsidies (both direct and indirect), on suppliers for machinery, seed and fertilizer, and in some cases on immigrant labor.

Just as we are dependent on farmers. It's all interconnected.

Ironically they may tolerate local govt, and had federal govt, but they are most dependent on fed govt policies.

They do of course have many legitimate grievances, but I'm not sure that voting for the party that seems to hate them is a winning strategy.

> They don't see the effect of their taxes being spent,

They are quite aware of taxes because 13.5% of their income on average comes directly from federal subsidies paid by taxes on "city folk".

https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...

> The voters will vote against their own interests over and over and over if they keep hearing something that resonates with what they feel.

Most large farm owners are very well off and are absolutely voting in their own interests for the party whose primary goal is to cut taxes on the wealthiest while cutting government support for the poorest.

The rural working class and poor on the other hand are however often voting against their economic interests, but their economic situation has long been ignored by both partie, so having given up hope for economic change, they often vote on culture/identity issues.

"retrained as tech support" isn't a real solution either.

"because everything and everyone is potentially an hour's drive away."

Which only 1h because of federal subsidies as rural communities learn. Without health subsidies many hospitals will close, and it's no longer a 1h drive but a 5h drive.

People often live in a delusion on why things are the why they are - their explanation often is the one that suits them most (also see USAid).

>and I listened to some pro-Trump people who seem otherwise intelligent that tried to explain this effect.

If all you know is by listening to people recently on TV then you don't know farmers very well.

>farms get all sorts of special treatment for taxes, bankruptcy and inheritance

When I see the amount of exploits the wealthy use to avoid taxes and maximize profits, I realize working a 9-5 job is for fools, considering how much taxes I'm paying on my salary.

Pretty much, the whole small farmer trying to make a buck is a huge propaganda push, several companies own millions of acreage.

I feel bad for the smaller farmers for sure but they are vastly overrepresented in the proportional losses because Americans have much less sympathy for large corporations rather than individual business owners. Whats even more frustrating that if you try to read more about this you just get wall after wall about how bill gates owns the most which is patently false

    > rich folk like the Treasury Secretary who maintain farms for ... financial benefits

    > Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is an investor in North Dakota soybean farmland but has stated he has divested from his holdings to avoid conflicts of interest, addressing criticisms regarding his personal financial stake in agriculture.

A currency swap absolutely isn't "basically a line of credit". Any swap is a credit agreement insofar as each party is committing to future possible liabilities, but a currency swap is a very standard instrument which is part of central banks' monetary policy toolkit and helps them in their mandate to ensure currency stability. Swaps can be extremely flexible so the terms differ wildly, but they're not generally a line of credit that can be drawn from, they're an agreement to pay or receive amounts based on future movements of some underlying rates.

So what is a currency swap. Well any swap is an agreement with at least two legs, a pay leg and a receive leg. The normal type of swap is a interest rate swap so say I agree to pay you every month 3% fixed interest on 10m USD and you agree to pay me some floating rate (say 3m usd libor + 100bps) interest on the same amount. So every month we do a calculation where if libor+100 is greater than 3 then I pay you otherwise you pay me. We might do this to hedge our interest rate exposure. Like say you're a bank and I'm a bank and most of my borrowers are fixed rate mortgages and most of my savings accounts pay floating rate interest. I want a hedge so the floating rate doesn't end up costing me too much.

A currency swap is like that but with different currencies. So say we change things so it's 10m USD on one side and 15m EUR on the other side and we agree to exchange principal amounts. So that sets an exchange rate of 1.5 as well as the interest rate thing from before. If interest rates or exchange rates now move, this provides a hedge. So the hedge now is not just against the rate changing but also against the currency moving adversely. Central banks use this to ensure the import/export vs domestic balance of their economy is appropriate given the levels of trade between nations and also as a hedge against adverse currency movements affecting both assets they hold (yes they hold bonds etc) and their outstanding debt (which for the Fed will include "Eurobonds" they have issued in other currencies than USD).

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currencyswap.asp is a general explanation

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb-and-you/explainers/tell-me-mor... is the perspective of a central bank on currency swaps and their use

A very high profile mainstream Republican proposed the most severe anti-gun policy I think anyone at his level ever has: taking guns without due process. And they still voted to reelect him twice. The idea that the GOP is not anti-gun is a fantasy.

You’re buying into Republican propaganda if you believe this.

> I think it's actually because of the gun control crap that Dems push.

Anything specific? Because from where I sit, the Dems aren't anywhere near as strict as they should be wrt to gun control.

Or are you just believing the stuff you're hearing from conservative media? Are you really of the belief that "farmers" need assault rifles? What about bump stocks?

How many school shooting have we had? What legislation came from those? Can you even name any?

Nah. This is not true. They voted, because they looked forward the harm to liberals and cities and lgbt and women who dont conform and non whites. They wanted other to be harmed and openly talked about it. They thought they will be harmed only a little, like the last time.

Historically, republicans were not making policies good for them. By they promissed to be cruel and that was appealing.

Fix your voting system. This two party system you have if caused by the First Past the Post voting system you have. Basically mostly all the is uniquely broken about US politics is downstream from FPTP. You can't get smart solutions if all your options are dumb and dumber.

> How is this any different than say, Democratic voters who want medicare for all (or whatever) and not getting that for decades?

How is it different? It’s different because people do stop voting for right-leaning Democrats who are all talk, and then they lose and Republicans win, and then the Republican voters get exactly what they voted for (and everyone else gets it too).

Republicans control the government, what on Earth do Republican voters have to complain about? They got what they voted for.

If they’re unhappy with the government they should complain to the mirror.

> How is this any different than say, Democratic voters who want medicare for all (or whatever) and not getting that for decades?

Because democrats largely support M4A and socialized health care in general. A handful are squishy on the issue, and the structure of the senate requires significant bipartisanship to pass[1]. But if you want it to pass you want to vote for democrats, duh. If you do happen to vote for a democrat who actually opposes that and complain to them that they didn't vote for it, then yeah: you're dumb.

[1] The exception that proves the rule being the ACA itself, which passed on an EXTREMELY rare party-line 60 vote majority. And didn't include a government-offered insurance option because of the objections of Just One Guy (Joe Lieberman, representing the insurance hotbed of Connecticut) whose vote was needed.

> How is this any different than say, Democratic voters who want medicare for all (or whatever) and not getting that for decades?

They can see progress. ACA wasn't a slam dunk, but it was progress.

Also, you aren't voting for a Republican or a Democrat, you are voting for a person, and if the person you are voting for supports M4A, that's what you can do. If someone else in the same party doesn't support that, you can't do anything about that. However, your representative is one piece of the puzzle. Giving up on that is dumb.

It's not like the Democrats are under the heels of a tyrant leading their party and country over a cliff.

> How is this any different than say, Democratic voters who want medicare for all (or whatever) and not getting that for decades?

To be fair, the progressive movement in the Democratic Party is much larger than any actual working-class movement in the GOP. MAGA is not exactly pro-union, pro-striking, or even pro-farmer, given the tariffs. The Progressive Caucus otoh is now 45 % of the House Democrats. Zohran Mamdani was just elected mayor of NYC, and is already making big moves against landlords.

And that's even aside from the voters who don't vote for corporate Dems, and then get blamed by the DNC for losses. Every time someone asserts that "Bernie Bros" sat out in 2016, they're talking about Democrats who refused to keep 'voting for the same party over and over again'.

At least (some) Democrats actually say they want Medicare for all. The farmer parallel would be like voting for a Republican hoping for Medicare for all.

Though I'm a bit biased, because it seems like if you want anything other than for billionaires to get more money, you would vote Dem.

I never watch TV and especially not news on TV, except when its a major debate that they're broadcasting, I always go for raw unedited sources. So if there's a White House announcement, through every presidency I just go to the White House youtube livestream no commentary, just the raw announcement / press briefing (I did this through all of Trump, Biden and now Trump again, though I've decided to take a break, I'm exhausted mentally). So many years ago, I was in a relatives home. They turn on the news, no big deal. I hear what sounds like a news reporter screaming and whining, I dont pay attention for about 5 minutes because I'm busy reading something on my phone, but I notice it. Then I finally look, and I had no idea what leanings they had at the time since I never watch news but it was CNN and she was saying all sorts of things about Trump in what was very obvious anger (why any organization that calls itself News / Journalistic would ever do this is beyond me). I don't think the hateful rhetoric is exclusive to one side. I think the mainstream media is pushing poison on both ends and any time something tragic happens in either direction I always see clips of news reporters from either side saying the most vile things, regardless of what the issue is or who it affects.

In my eyes, TV journalism is mostly dead. I rather stick to local stations that stay focused on things that affect me most directly.

Egypt and the north african provinces were a part of the Roman empire fairly early on. They were also some of the wealthiest and most important provinces in the Empire.

Fair! My comment was probably more dramatic than it needed to be, but I was trying to paint a picture as it kinda irks me when a lot people act like farmers are 'welfare queens' just taking money and living the good life. Not that OP did that, but it makes subsidies a 'dirty word.'

Subsidies is a hugely loaded term that would take more than a few comments to even begin to cover, but yes, they do cover those things that you mentioned, but a lot more than that. Heck they even sometimes pay farmers not to grow things at all - we used to get a check not to grow tobacco. I was a child then, I don't remember all the details.

Importantly, subsidies already include a federal crop insurance program that the government pays most of. That would cover most reasons for loss of crops. But there's also payments when say, you had a great year, but prices crashed through no fault of your own. And separate payments for say, farm animals catching disease and dying, or natural disasters. And separate payments for things like the messy situation COVID created. And a lot, lot more.

My comment was mainly with the lens of 'get rid of subsidies and buy your own insurance', and well, we see how well that works with health insurance. "Oh sorry Mr Smith, those cicadas were underground when you bought the farm, pre-existing condition, denied."

> over half of corn acreage is used for ethanol.

That doesn't mean much without more details. Corn is used as a tool in the crop rotation to enable growing foods for humans to eat. As we learned before ethanol's time in the sun, farmers are going to grow it anyway to support their rotations. The only question is if it is better to recapture that into usable energy or to let it rot out in the field.

> ... when taking land use into account

But if not taken into account? The harsh reality is that ethanol plants are unable to pay cost-of-production-level prices for corn. It now typically costs $5+ to produce a bushel of corn, while ethanol plants generally start to lose money as the price rises above $4.50 per bushel. You're not growing corn for ethanol. You accept selling corn to ethanol buyers when you can't find a better home for it.

Corn especially is a tough one to predict. A couple of years ago yields around here were nearly 100 bushels per acre higher than normal! Even if we put in the mightiest effort to grow exactly the right amount of corn for reasonable food uses, that 100 bushel surprise means a good 1/3 of your crop has no predetermined home right there. Of course, it can go the other way too. If you end up 100 bushels per acre short of what you expected...

Between needing to grow extra to protect against unexpected low yields, combined with unexpected high yields, half to the corn crop having no home (and therefore ending up as ethanol) isn't that far outside of what cannot be reasonably controlled for.

> To recap US overproduces calories to the point that it hurts the country.

That's fair. We don't have the technology to do better, unfortunately. Maybe once LLMs free up software developers once and for all they can turn their focus towards solving this problem?

Cattle are inefficient consumers of grain, but highly efficient consumers of grass. Most land used for pasture can't effectively be used for anything else.

Americans would riot without burgers.

I have some friends that picked up free potatoes. That's why I mentioned it.

https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-germany-potatoes-eu-agriculture...

Thanks for the fact check!

This exactly.

The fuss made about agricultural subsidies by non-farmers is misguided. Dropping subsidies doesn't make food cheaper, it makes it go away.

Consumers are addicted to cheap food, so they pay taxes instead to make up the difference. Given a progressive tax system this actually is a very efficient approach to take. And overall, as a % of the total budget, these subsidies are insignificant.

What is hurting farmers are reduced markets. USAid used to buy up a lot of surplus production (effectively a back-door subsidy), lots got exported to China et al. Given the economic antagonism towards the US (thanks to things like tarifs and insults) demand for US food exports either dropped naturally (eg Canada) or with reciprocal tarifs (eg China).

Politicians like to say "we don't make things here anymore" ignoring the most fundamental production of all (farming). They destabilize foreign trade, and (if we look at more labor intensive crops) target farm workers for deportation.

To be fair, agriculture states are also red states, so it's fair to say they voted for this.

That’s what foreign aid is for:

1. Keep strategic production capacity alive.

2. Spread American soft power.

3. Get warm fuzzy feelings because you prevented millions of people from dying of starvation.

Curious what sort of tech? Like better tractors and such?

Please provide examples

Downvoting without engaging in a discussion kind of directly violates both the spirit and rules around here.

I've posted pretty solid evidence that dregulation, did not, in fact improve the agricultural situation for New Zealand. It absolutely made a subset of corporations and mega-farmers extremely rich at the expense of the natural resources the rest of the country shares. Would LOVE to hear the arguments about how that's a good thing for the people of New Zealand or our planet as a whole.

But then again, that would require thoughtful discourse...

Do those crops contribute to the negative numbers reported since most people don't buy biofuel? Or does it contribute something positive to the numbers with government subsidies guaranteeing returns?

I haven't studied the economics of the biofuel farming.

Which could be easily converted in one harvest to feed a nation if needed. That option is very valuable.

Because corn fed beef isn't as flavorful as grass fed beef. (Or healthy for the cattle)

It's so much worse for poultry. My state and the bordering states represent more than half of US production and there's exactly one USDA facility available to independent producers. They're quite small and the cost approaches today's retail price for a whole Tyson chicken.

There are USDA exemptions for tiny producers (up to 20K/yr vs 150K+ for a single modern broiler house) to slaughter and package themselves for in-state sales but anyone operating under one of those exemptions won't be able to grow that business large enough to self-finance constructing their own USDA-monitored facility.

Do you propose continuing to not push back instead? That'll show 'em!

Populism is in the air, and for good reason. Lina Khan's FTC was not all they feared, but if it had been, our mistake would have been one of not going far enough.

~78% of farmers voted for him. They are directly responsible for their own outcome in this regard.

Canada supplies 75-80% of US potash imports, and potash is a non-substitutable input in agriculture; without it, crop yields drop significantly. China no longer buy soybeans from US farmers, and instead now sources from South America; they have made a token 12M ton purchase, as they promised.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/farmers-bailout-tr...

> Ragland, for example, supported Trump dating back to 2016, making him just one of many in rural America. Trump won a majority of USDA “farming-dependent” counties ahead of his first term, and within a year of assuming office, his trade wars drove American farm exports to China down from $19.5 billion to $9 billion. Ultimately, farmers saw a decline of $27 billion in agricultural exports, nearly 71 percent of that attributable to soybean profit losses. Ragland, a soybean farmer, still turned right back around and voted for Trump again in both 2020 and 2024. Here again, he was just one of many. Farmers increased their support for Trump by 5 percent in 2020, hitting 76 percent support, and then added another 2 percent in 2024, reaching 78 percent support. In 100 of the country’s 444 “farming-dependent” counties, according to Investigate Midwest, Trump won a whopping 80 percent of the vote.

> “So they voted for this guy three times—all these white farmers did. And now this president has turned agriculture in this country to the worst [shape it’s been in] since the ’80s. Farm bankruptcies. Farm foreclosures. Farm suicide [My note: farmer suicides are 3.5x-4x the general population]. Input costs—all these things,” Boyd told me.

https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/11/13/trump-election-far...

> Not only did Trump increase his support among farming-dependent counties, but more than 100 of those counties supported him with at least 80% of their vote.

This is entirely self inflicted, which to me, is wild and a case study for history. This was a collective choice, intentionally made.

Not necessarily? Not that we've had one recently at the federal level, but there are multiple studies that show that state or city level minimum wage bumps tend to show an increase in average rental price, by the same percentage, within sometimes as few as four months.

There'll always need to be other constraints on landlords because there's zero reason why they won't just all screw renters over in every area no matter how plentiful housing is.

Other countries? Asia seems to be able to make a living off of rice farming, and their secret is not going into debt investing in $1M harvesters.

This is like the education or gun debates, or basically any quality of life message you might have. It's almost impossible to get your message heard. There will always be some non-reason why everything is oh-so-different in the US. It's very frustrating to live here with all the matter-of-fact head-in-the-sand know-it-all bloviating.

Meanwhile our teachers are suffering enormously, our education is terrible, our roads are terrible, we are poisoning ourselves with substandard food, we have extremely expensive but relatively poor healthcare to deal with the problems that creates, we have no time off and are labor slaves where maximum effort for minimum pay is the norm, and half the country has become violently oppressive to the point of absolutely thriving off the suffering they perceive inflicted on others. And still, we know better - of course - because we are Americans.

I've lived in Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Just being honest about my experience here, but the cheap stuff (like potatoes) are cheaper in the EU but the expensive stuff (like beef[0]) are more expensive.

[0] https://www.globalproductprices.com/rankings/beef_price/

Europeans don't have to eat 1700 calories in a meal to feel full.

> if big ag subsidies were phased out, small local farms would have a better chance of being viable.

Maybe. The subsidies that we always hear about is a portion of insurance premiums paid by the government. Presumably if the government pulled out of the subsidy, the risk/reward of insurance would tilt towards not having it. Many farmers already forego having insurance even with the reduced price.

Which would mean nothing until something bad happens. But when something does happen, that means some big farms could collapse. But it would also mean small farms are just as likely to collapse right beside.

I expect you are ultimately right: That once the collapses occur, it would be hard to rebuild a large farm before it ends up collapsing once more, leaving farms unable to ever grow beyond being small again. But is that what you imagine for small farms?

Of course, that's all theoretical. In the real world, the government wouldn't let the food supply fall apart like that. If farms didn't have insurance, it would simply come in and bail them out when destructive events occur. It is a lot simpler, and no doubt cheaper (the subsidy is offered on the condition of being willing to give production data back in return), to implement a solution ahead of time rather than panicking later.

>People shop where they can afford to shop.

No, they shop where they can get the most stuff for the least amount of money.

Temu and Shein didn't fill some kind of product availability void, they filled the relentless consumerism void of people.

Relatively few that got to court.

While some farmers certainly did as you described (and while personally I disagree with the whole concept, leaving that aside for now), others just caught wind drifted seeds on their land.

The issue was that Monsanto et al would often put the onus on small farmers to prove they didn't deliberately breed the seed. Being civil, the issue became more "balance of probabilities" versus "beyond reasonable doubt". When you have Monsanto's army of lawyers, and a "generous" offer to "settle" for a licensing fee and agreement to purchase, then many of those small farmers rolled over. Often the ones that ended up in court were those who did actually have either sufficient resources, or were sufficiently pissed off to "stand their ground".

I'm not a farmer myself- I just live in the midwest and hear small farmers complain about it all the time. There's a constant threat of legal action they feel about these seeds with patents making it into their fields, and they have no real capital to fight even frivolous patent lawsuits.

> supply management is far better than the alternatives.

Why, then, only dairy, poultry, eggs, and — at least until 2007 when the government bought back the quota — tobacco production? If the farmers growing the foods that are actually deemed important in a healthy diet end up bankrupt, no big deal?

> It also ensures the market price is fair to farmers.

Well, it creates a two-tier system where the 'blessed' farmers who are born into it (or born into a European farm that can be sold at a high enough price to buy a farmer in Canada out) have artificially high incomes to spend on land, equipment, etc. at inflated prices. It is hard to think that is fair to all the other farmers who have to compete against the farmers of the world when selling their product but have to pay supply managed farmer prices for inputs.

I suppose everything is in the eye of the beholder. I'll grant you that all the other farmers' retirement plan is to sell off their land to a supply managed farmer who will pay way more than it is worth. That keeps the peace. Bit sad to see everything go to those producers who get special treatment, though.

Ok, so why waste the excess product? Why not feed the hungry, locally or abroad?

Funny, my family is in farming in Ontario, and we know the the number of family owned farms is in the decline! So the system isn't really working to stop the trend.

Supply management isn't perfect, but a few players benifit greatly from it and resist the change at the expense of the consumer!

GOP has long pursued a strategy of getting rural whites to vote against their self interest. This is why they play up cultural issues such as trans people using women's bathrooms and such other topics that uneducated people can readily grasp.

> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.

Something that's been made very clear over the last few election cycles is that a lot of voters will go against their own interests, as long as it hurts their perceived "enemy" more than themselves.

> It's just shocking to me how certain demographics are so eager to vote against their own interests.

Nobody votes against their own interests. That is something that only stupid caricatures do, not actual people. If it seems that way to you, that should be a very strong signal to reevaluate your understanding of the situation. Most likely, that means either nobody is representing their interests or you have misunderstood what their interests are.

Ok who defines monopoly? I know there is a textbook definition, but it's still somewhat subjective. Also the US won't do this if it creates a international competitive disadvantage.