[Borodog]

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The markets work perfectly without govt. intervention imo. If one year not enough potatos are produced, or even if farmers suspect there won't be enough planted you can bet your ass that those farmers will increase their acreage to try and take advantage of the high potato prices (because they are greedy capitalists as well) till the market gets saturated and the price falls to a level right about where farmers are break even. It's Econ 101 and even backwoods redneck farmers like me can understand it.

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well
a) there's a food shortage right there in your example
b) I mean I'm sure the program is more than is necessary, but in theory farmers overproduce for the public good, and then the gov compensates them from the public good. I don't see anything wrong with that. undoubtably it should be restricted to staple foods / staple animal feed maybe.

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Widespread famines stopped happening in the 18th century because of improvements in transportation. It's almost inconceivable that such a thing could happen today. If the US can't grow enough wheat, we can just buy it from Canada, or the Ukraine, or Argentina.

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Bingo. The only places that can have famines these days are the places where

a) there is very little capital, so agricultural production and distribution remains primitive, and the locals cannot afford the going world price, usually going hand in hand with:

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