Nations's food system nearly broke.

[thx1138]

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/440669

[trish]

As the credit markets continue to fail and money grows tighter, the cost of doing agribusiness (indeed the cost of doing any business) will climb. What’s unique about agribusiness is the consumer definition of demand takes prominence along side the supply-side definition of demand. People can cut their consumption to a point, until they begin to starve. At that point demand (as it’s known by the consumer, or in this case, the would-be consumer) does not go down. But since fewer people can afford to buy, demand (as supply-siders define it) is indeed going down. From the supply-siders point of few the remedy is to cut the supply and raise the price. Food manufacturers will shut down the rural hog factories and thousands of square miles of fructose fields will go fallow.

What’s wrong with this picture???

In the case of food, it’s difficult to ignore the real meaning of “demand” and to replace it with the odd, sterile little Austrian conception of demand as a function of price that yields the number of items one can move at that price. The political and social pressures that a horde of hungry people can apply will have to figured into the equation.

I doubt it will get bad enough to spell the end of the Giants of Industry model of modern agribusiness. But if it did I wouldn’t feel too badly about it. I wouldn’t mind seeing the break up of huge factory farms and the return of the distributed system of simple and independent family farms.

How could this happen? The government could step into the crises, buy up the conglomerates, break them down and rent or mortgage to individual families who demonstrate their commitment to supplying the nation’s food.

[SugaSweet]

The corporate farm system is here to stay in the US.A few independents do their thing so they can receive checks not to grow certain crops per year.Also the modern day independent can simply buy a futures contract against what he or she is growing =wheat,soybeans,etc and if the crop fails the future hits and they still come out ok.I prefer to buy from roadside independents,and they are growing increasingly harder to find.The corporate farms have made their way into Panama,Costa Rica and many other areas once thought impossible to incorporate.If a company like Dole is providing many positives for a community,which is the case in Costa Rica,I say it is a good thing.By the way,who wants to buy some peaches in about two to three months?