It's often subsidized to help it be more robust to larger scale things like a famine, dust bowl, etc. Farmers increasingly asking for subsidies because the larger fiscal picture of our economy has squeezed the hell out of farmers, seems more a leading indicator that all industries are facing it. I think the problem is you have regular residential homeowners dipping into the farmer tax credits by doing little s*** like removing a little buckthorn or planting some native saplings that never grow.
It's actually quite absurd to think the US could have a food crisis given our territory. But our leaders have managed to make it happen before
Side effect of globalism. Places like Brazil have a competitive advantage, therefore production migrates to lowest cost centers. Over time the higher cost centers i.e. US can't compete, so capital flows to where it can get the biggest ROI.
I don't think there's anything nefarious about it but it's a good illustration why unbridled capitalism and competitive advantage framework that drove globalism for the last 40 years has deep flaws. You can't sacrifice your domestic industries and depend on others. We're finding this out with rare earth metals, chips and other things. Last thing we want is our food supply to be dependent on a far away nation.
e. but a counterpoint to my point is we do need to care for the general populace/consumer, especially when they are being squeezed by pervasive inflation. When ground beef is 7 dollars a pound, sorry farmer bros it's time to bring in the Argentinian beef
This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jun 7 2026 06:54am