this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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But I do (sort of) blame farmers (agribusiness really) for a lot of obesity. Maybe everything doesn’t need corn syrup in it?
Fossil fuels are useful as hell for chemical feedstocks and we mostly just burn them. Stop trying to prevent solutions by spuriously individualizing the causes.
The US government subsidizes corn heavily.
Less sympathy now as farming is increasingly industrial but if your options are:
A) grow a crop and risk not getting paid anything if it comes out poorly
B) grow corn and get a nearly-guaranteed payout
B seems to be the safe bet. I don’t think blaming people on choosing B is the move. I know I wouldn’t voluntarily choose A if my livelihood depended on it.
Part of the background is that the government wants to keep farmers "on hand" even when demand isn't there, for national security reasons.
Essentially they want to be able to get more crops out of all farmers in a bad year, rather than rely on only a fewer number of farmers in a good year.
There are many greed/corruption/waste issues with this system, but all nations have a strong interest in keeping their breadbasket staffed up for hypothetical bad times
Yup, it’s a subsidy that I think generally makes sense, except I don’t think the plan was for everyone to pour so much resources into corn.
Probably around the point we got to: “can we use mashed up corn as fuel and plastic” is when we should’ve tried incentivizing a greater diversity of crops 😅
I've heard the fuel and plastic thing is again a subsidized endpoint for corn to keep the conveyor belt flowing.
There's more than just corn like that
I grew up on a tobacco farm, when it's sells it sells like an auction. If no one buys your crop, the government bought it for a set price and threw it in a warehouse in case we "ran out" of tobacco between harvests and companies wanted to buy more or some shit
But that's not even really a subsidy, so I'm not sure why you're talking about it.
I would say that a government guaranteed price floor would count as a subsidy, especially on a luxury/vice product like tobacco.
Not sure what the mixup is but it's a subsidy.
Blaming farmers for obesity is like blaming oil field labourers for climate change.
Not the farmers at fault. It's the companies that have spent untold billions perfecting food items with properties that abuse and manipulate our bodies that are at fault. It's so bad that it's a whole field of study.
E.G. Potato Chips are so addictive because they give a massive burst of flavour and a hard crunch, but don't give anything to chew. So you want more and don't get full until you're overstuffed.
Exactly. The comparison isn't with farmers, its with the processed food industry that do every single thing they can to have you stuffing your face with their products.
Agreed, but to add, I think a much more honest analogy would be comparing farmers to roughnecks that work oil rigs since those people are just cogs in a much larger machine. Those steering the machines are the oil companies and agribusinesses, and when reframed, I think most people would agree oil companies bear just as much blame for global warming as agribusinesses bear for obesity.
The oil companies have known that global warming was their fault since the 1970s and have either suppressed and lied that information or paid people to ignore and obscure that information.
They suppressed ecologically viable alternatives and even overthrew democratic governments to get their way.
When attempts are made just to get them to clean up their own mess they create stacks of shell companies to move the profits around and leave the people on the ground in the local area with the mess.
They are absolutely at fault and deserve zero mercy.
Farmers aren't the ones putting corn syrup in things.
Farmers aren't putting corn syrup in things.