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Old 11-15-2007, 06:40 PM
Money2Burn Money2Burn is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Florida, imo
Posts: 943
Default Re: 286 billion Farm Aid Bill for 2008

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b) the United States has wiped out local agriculture by dumping subsidized American agricultural surplusses as "aid".

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Example?

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http://www.newfarm.org/news/2005/0305/030205/dump.shtml

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“Agriculture subsidies are not driving dumping,” says Ritchie. “It is the absence of farm programs that bring production in line with supply. Without these programs, farmers will over-produce with or without subsidies, and dumping will continue.”

Isn't he saying subsidies are not what is causing dumping?

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He might be saying that, but he's wrong. I just grabbed that article because it talks about the impact of dumping. If he thinks the market would naturally overproduce things like farm products in the absence of farm subsidies, he's either crazy or just economically ignorant.

Agicultural subsidies clearly leads to overproduction, and overproduction clearly exacerbates dumping.

Edit: Also the source is pro-farm. So one has to couch one's anti-dumping arguments in a fashion that are palatable to farmers, who obviously like free money and don't want that free money to be threatened.


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To be fair, farmers do overproduce sometimes, but it's never intentional and is usually the result of speculation about how much competitors are planting and favorable growing conditions. If you have a bumper crop most other competent farmers will as well. That's the problem with farming is that so often they are completely at the mercy of the weather.

OTOH farmers don't want big surpluses because it usually means they are probably going to lose money that season.
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