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Al Gore can suck it


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Aren't farm subsidies the antithesis of capitalism? Most the land being built upon in California was once farmland but when the real estate boom started it made more sense to sell off the family farm and cash in. Only the old timers, or folks not in the development path, kept the land in ag. And as development creeps into ag land, eventually ag gets pushed out as the local community complains about smells. Just ask dairy farmers in California. All dairy operations have effectively been pushed out of the Bay area to Sacramento regions and driven deeper down the valley, towards Bakersfield as new homo-owners complain about the smell even though they moved there while the dairies were there first. Farm subsidies, albeit pork barrel spending at it's worst, allows some relief for those that still farm. Sad to see the once fertile fields being plowed under for homes and our food being outsourced.

And don't even want to get started on the morons pushing ethanol as a fuel additive and the effects on rising food prices.

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Don't forget that subsidies come in a few categories. Most aren't direct hand outs. The most common is buying excess capacity farmland by paying farmers not to plant. The second is buying crops and either sendin them overseas as aid or just letting them rot. In some cases, like milk and sugar, feds and states set minimum prices for what anything can be sold for. All of these are tools to manipulate supply and pricing to keep margins higher. IIRC that is a way the US gets around many WTO guidelines.

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