Re: Agriculture
[Rod Dreher  03/09 02:14 PM]

Ricardo from Michigan writes:

I wonder if you've thought about what would happen to family farms if the regulatory scheme you talk about really was dismantled and a more free-market system was created. I mean this in the sense that I don't believe it's self-evident that the boutique or family farms would actually survive. I do think in the long run, that these sort of farms would again rise as Jonah says, but in the transition, those farms do presently exist within the same regulatory framework as agribusiness and have far less resources to survive such a transition. I went to law school with a guy whose family owned a small cattle ranch out west, and he was extremely pro-subsidy. And it makes sense- although the vast majority of subsidies certainly go to agribusiness, there is some truth to the family farm talking point; they do get subsidies, after all.

Like I said, I think in the long run the scenario Jonah describes is the likely one. But I think it might be more a function of the levelled playing field encouraging new market entry by smaller participants than the present small farmers sticking around while Monsanto files for bankruptcy. So while it'd encourage smaller farms in the long run, it might come at the cost of the current family farms. A gradual shift away from subsidies might lessen this effect, but I still see the larger companies surviving a shift more easily than small ones.