Will US politicians ever take a stand against agricultural subsidies?

[tolbiny]

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I think this is a good point, and that it is probably a wise basic strategy. A country which can be food self-sufficient if necessary, is in a far stronger long-term position.

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Its really not a good point not cultivating land in the US doesn't make the land useless all of a sudden (in fact letting land lie fallow is good farming) and we wouldn't be depending on other countries to trade with, we would just be doing it out of preference over wasting money farming ourselves. Short term there could be a pinch if we lost our overseas supply, but switching the farming back on would take less than a season. Besides that the pinch is very unlikely to happen as there will almost always be a country or two willing to trade with us.

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How do you feel about countries we've dumped on to the point that they are almost entirely dependent on imported food? Consider only countries that are perfectly capable of producing enough food to sustain themselves domestically.

Are they more or less secure?

Are they being extra specially cunning by letting their domestic agriculture wither while the stupid americans wastefully sell them food below the price at which they (stupid americans) produce it?

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For a country where the vast majority of the economy is based on producing food having having the US dump obscenely cheap food is definitely a bad thing (in the short term). Without infrastructure and investments all the excess capital in the form of labor hours, machinery, pesticides and whatever else is needed for farming has no place to be put to work usefully. Even worse is that these countries don't have capital reserves developed which helps them through tougher times, so a shortage situation can lead to a starve or steal situation, which further prevents a transition to a different economic base.

The US, however, is not a agriculturally based society and there are many different places in the economy for the now unused time, materials and money to flow into. there will be a small period of adjustment which is to be expected, but a country which loses 1% of its economy in such a manner only has to have the other 99% grow 1.1% to absorb it. A country that loses 50% needs the other half to double before the previous standard of living is regained.


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Are they being extra specially cunning by letting their domestic agriculture wither while the stupid americans wastefully sell them food below the price at which they (stupid americans) produce it?

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Yes, Americans who overproduce in the name of national security are stupid, for subsidies are doubly bad from that perspective.
First, your example above shows that dumping cheap food on agricultural countries will wreck their economy, this leaves large groups of people angry, violent and a direct line to the cause of the situation. With attitudes like yours prevailing the government its no wonder that large chunks of the world hate us, and that smaller, but substantial groups are willing to risks their lives attacking and protecting those who attack us.

Secondly overproductions is terrible for the future when it comes to farming. Subsidies today make farmers willing to sacrifice the productivity of their lands ten years from now, over use of pesticides leads to resistant pests, poor crop rotation leads to depleted soil which requires more fertilizer which has its own set of problems (algal blooms killing fish stocks due to nitrogen runoff), and eventually a lose of fertility for the land overall, be it from topsoil loss or whatever. Where is your national security when you cannot produce enough food for your own people and MUST rely on other countries to supply it?