i think a good first step would be to remove farming subsidies so that they don't make decisions based on the fact that growing corn and soy is profitable because of the subsidies.
You'd get no resistance from me to eliminate agriculture subsidies. It would be mighty nice to see an organized movement to produce crops free of subsidies. I think people would be shocked to see just how cheap their food really is.
Subsidies are an alternative to having massive granary stores to supply an entire nation. If you don't guarantee overproduction, you will soon find yourself having shortages as crop yields can vary up to 30% each year. Without subsidies farms will optimize towards producing only barely enough to satisfy demand so they don't waste money on crops they can't sell, profit margins are usually 1% or less so there is very little room for overproduction. Once everyone is trying to thread that thin line, a single bad month of weather or a large wind or hail storm would turn you from a food exporting nation to a food importing nation overnight, and crop prices will swing wildly in either direction from it.
Subsidies certainly are poorly applied and could use some serious work fixing them, but just getting rid of them outright is foolish.
I wasn't suggesting subsidies; I was suggesting doing nothing, letting farmers absorb the risk, and presumably pass it on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
I'm not saying farmers shouldn't get the subsidies. But no one should have a problem if the sector's inefficiencies are removed and that generates frictional unemployment.
Uh, if they have access to every facility to improve but instead of availing of it, they choose to squander it all, I'm not going to be exactly sympathetic with them. I've firsthand seen the mindset of these people who want to do nothing all day and expect government dole-outs all the time.
I personally believe we need to remove all agricultural subsidies, while at the same time raise the price of food to reflect their real value, including the farmers’ labour.
But I always get pushback saying that farm work is not valuable because it is unskilled and can be done by anyone. Yet, we have a shortage of farmers.
A problem with this is that government intervention/subsidies competes directly with local businesses and farmers and they won't be able to compete.
This will lead to a situation where once you start giving them food, you won't be able to stop or it will devastate the economy and people will starve.
It's better to give local businesses and farmers the tools and knowledge to grow the food instead. This way, they won't be completely dependent on another nation for survival.
Many of these poor countries have governments that rule with an iron fist and make it nearly impossible for anyone to thrive. This problem needs to be fixed first, or all of our other ideas will only end up hurting them in the long run.
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