yurbud
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:01 AM
Original message |
I had a chilling thought: why hasn't our big agriculture been outsourced yet? |
|
Admittedly big ag has it good here: giant subsidies, trade policies that make it nearly impossible for other countries to compete, patented crops and on and on.
The downside for them is even the token taxes, labor and environmental laws they have to follow are stricter than they would have to deal with in other countries: as little as illegal immigrant ag workers make, they come here because they can make more here than back home. Likewise, while big ag can buy off our politicians here, what are the chances they could buy other Mexican, Indian, and Russian politicians for even less?
Obviously, I'm not talking about fruit and other stuff that we already get from all over the world, but wheat, corn, soy, and crops like that.
The other reason they might do it: another economic sector to short until it's dead and its bones are picked clean. And as we have seen with manufacturing, computer programming, and even the mortgage industry, it is much, much, easier to make a business or even whole economic sector fail than to make it succeed, so that is what the spoiled trust fund babies on Wall Street who have been gutting our economy to avoid having to learn how to make anything or provide any service have been doing for the last few decades.
food for thought.
|
tom_paine
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:10 AM
Response to Original message |
1. Only because it is physically tied to the productive capacity of the land itself |
|
If they could move it to the Third World, our American Corporatists would, but it is physically impossible.
So they are making our nation Third World, instead.
|
yurbud
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #1 |
9. how much is land in Third World countries? |
|
I hope you are right. I was fishing for counter-arguments that would shoot this down.
|
Vincardog
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 05:37 PM
Response to Reply #9 |
18. The reason land in Iowa and Illinois is used is because it can grow a lot of corn and wheat. You |
|
Edited on Thu Mar-25-10 05:39 PM by Vincardog
can't get the same yields in Bolivia. Brazil has some land that can be improved to make serious yields possible. I have heard rumors of China leasing giant portions of Siberia for its' agricultural potential.
|
yurbud
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Fri Mar-26-10 09:13 AM
Response to Reply #18 |
19. I was thinking of arable but underutilized areas like that. |
jaksavage
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:11 AM
Response to Original message |
|
south american cows, Pakistani chewing gum, called Nuclear Waste, I am not kidding.
|
yurbud
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:32 AM
Response to Reply #2 |
8. those are all bad, but when have they stopped the financial elite? |
SPedigrees
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:19 AM
Response to Original message |
3. Most of our wheat does, in fact, come from China and other countries. |
|
Edited on Thu Mar-25-10 11:38 AM by SPedigrees
Those "amber waves of grain" are but a distant memory now.
|
barbiegeek
(844 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 12:18 PM
Response to Reply #3 |
14. NO Wheat comes from CANADA |
SPedigrees
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 04:42 PM
Response to Reply #14 |
17. Some does, but the bulk of it comes from China now, particularly wheat products like |
|
wheat gluten that are used in bread and other products. I did say China and other countries.
|
Lance_Boyle
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:22 AM
Response to Original message |
4. Because the land is here and we illegally insource aliens to harvest it. |
|
Don't worry - big Ag does not have America's best interests at heart. Only profit and illegal labor exploitation.
|
Gman2
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:26 AM
Response to Original message |
5. Where have you been, we are buying up all the poor peoples most arable land. |
|
It has been going on for some time. We are expanding for GCC reasons.
|
yurbud
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:34 AM
Response to Reply #5 |
riderinthestorm
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:31 AM
Response to Original message |
6. Can't change the soil. US has some of the best in the world. |
|
It's productive capacities are incredible (even with the terrible chemicals we dump on it which is rapidly depleting it but still. It has a lot of "life" left).
While Big Ag is trying to move on other countries - outsourcing - they are limited in locating arable land that's worth it. This doesn't even get into the other logistics issues: transportation to get the product to market, the equipment to harvest and move it etc.
|
SOS
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:32 AM
Response to Original message |
7. Beginning in 2005 the US became a net food importer |
Gormy Cuss
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #7 |
11. Yes, and that allowed Big Ag to make bigger profits off of crops not used for food |
|
Edited on Thu Mar-25-10 11:37 AM by Gormy Cuss
such as corn grown for fuel, weed suppression, and other non-food uses.
|
daa
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:38 AM
Response to Original message |
12. Because big ag are rich republicans nt |
|
Edited on Thu Mar-25-10 11:39 AM by daa
|
DefenseLawyer
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 11:49 AM
Response to Original message |
13. Most big agriculture isn't labor intensive |
|
Corn, soybeans, cattle feedlots don't require lots of workers. Just a few guys with heavy equipment can handle a lot of acreage. Those ag businesses that are labor intensive, like fruit and vegetable growers and meat processing plants have a steady stream of foreign workers, documented and undocumented, to work cheap.
|
barbiegeek
(844 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 12:26 PM
Response to Original message |
15. Land available to Corp Farm is in Africa & Saudi's and Dhabi have corp it |
|
What can be used for corporate farm land (what hasn't already been done in South America--which some was taken back through Nationalization of AG--Brazil Venezuela) is in Poor African Nations. Middle Eastern Sheiks in Saudi Arabia, Dhabi, and other places in Mid-East are buying up African Land, corporation it, and bringing the food back to their home countries and pay less then a dollar a day for their labor.
|
area51
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu Mar-25-10 12:39 PM
Response to Original message |
16. Because it's being insourced, like nursing jobs, construction, etc; |
|
you need to bring people here to insource in order to destroy American jobs.
|
DU
AdBot (1000+ posts) |
Fri May 10th 2024, 01:48 AM
Response to Original message |