Farming, Subsidies, and Government Pork

In response to Charles Anthony’s post, Let Canadian pork production sink, commenter “pigfarmer” writes:

We operate in a free-market economy, however, food production is not exactly the same as other industries. Affordable and safe food is vital to the health of the country – both economically and physically. In Canada, we adhere to high standards of production and use programs such as Canadian Quality Assurance, Nutrient Management Plan and Environmental Farm Plan to ensure that we are producing food that is not only safe, but is also promoting a healthy, sustainable environment. Farmers are not able to demand higher payment for their products in spite of the fact that these extra measures increase our costs of production. Canada currently imports meat that has been treated with drugs that are illegal for use by Canadian producers. So yeah.. hey.. we can all quit – Ontario can kiss 33,000 jobs goodbye (the national figure is 1 in 8, by the way) and we can import all our food from China and Brazil. Good luck knowing how it was produced and what is in it!

Sure, by definition, one industry is not the same as another; however, the food market is the same as pretty much every other market.  Producers, consumers and everyone in between respond to the same incentives and react to the same market forces as any other industry.  Even in terms of safety, the food industry isn’t that special.  Sure, I want to eat to safe food, but I also want to drive a safe car and have a reasonable assurance that my house won’t spontaneously burn down.

In all these markets, it is unreasonable to expect the consumer to be an expert in the product and safety standards.  Consequently, we rely either on producer/industry signals or government regulations.  If the former, then the hog industry needs no special protection.  Consumers will recognize that the higher prices are necessary to ensure the quality of the product.  However, if we, as a society, determine that certain safety standards must be met, governmental regulation can be used to keep untrustworthy meat products out of our supermarkets.  This will drive up the price of meat, but, again, if that’s a necessary cost, then so be it; the consumer can pay for it (or choose not to, if they don’t want the specific product that much).

Our problem seems to pop up once people decide they want local products (for both safety and protectionist reasons), but they don’t want to pay for them.  At this point, the government tends to start meddling, thus distorting the entire market.  Farmers are put in untenable positions, producing unprofitable products, and seeking government assistance.  Consumers have unreasonable demands, wanting safe food, not wanting to pay for it, and then getting upset when government spending goes out of control.

Food is relatively cheap in 2009.  The average family spends a far smaller percentage of their household income on food than they did 50 years ago.  Allowing food to align with true market prices, rather than governmental distortions, could drive up food prices, but that won’t impoverish the nation.  Even if we decide that the government needs to help people afford more expensive food, the best way to do that is with direct aid to the consumer.  If you want to help the poor, just give them money, don’t completely screw up the food and agriculture industry.

Our food and agriculture policies have done a lot of damage to both farmers and consumers.  The only people they’ve really benenfited are those who are paid to write them.  It’s about time we got the government out of the business of damaging the economy.

Beware the Wrath of Global Warming – Perpetual Food Crisis!

Heed the advice of the omnipotent scientist – your children’s children will go to bed hungry because global warming will lead to “massive and simultaneous crop failures in many regions.”

The world faces a “perpetual food crisis” because global warming will likely lead to massive and simultaneous crop failures in many regions, possible as early as the period from 2040 to 2060, says a new study.

The finding, appearing in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, is based on climate models that suggest the worst heat waves of the past in a region, such as the deadly one in France in 2003 that killed at least 30,000, are likely to become their new normal summer time temperatures in the future.

Unless of course it doesn’t happen exactly the way these scientists speculate… in which case these types of hypothetical “food crisis” scenarios will be quickly forgotten and replaced with new über scary scenarios like “global robot uprising” or “brain chip meltdown.”

Scary stuff indeed.

Canadians do not need national food safety standards

I am appalled to hear Michael McCain, the head of Maple Leaf Foods Incorporated demanding national food safety standards and the dismantling provincial standards. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all and most importantly, the best meat comes from small producers. Small producers are being squeezed enough by absurd over-regulation already. Second, an inspection standard is just a bureaucratic hurdle. If things go awry, a producer can pass on the blame to the government. Third, under the duplicitous guise of consumer safety, national standards reinforce monopoly control for shamefully disgusting trash that is being peddled as “food” by such mega-factories.

Take a look at this nonsense:

He said most Canadians probably aren’t aware of the differences in standards.
“That’s actually the travesty. If they were aware and they made a conscious choice that’s acceptable to them, everybody is free to make a good choice. But I think the travesty here is they’re probably not even aware of different standards out there.“

So, Michael McCain is petitioning to reduce those free choices??? Shame on anybody who would lobby for such national standards.

I would never trust pre-packaged shrink-wrapped garbage over freshly cut meat from a local farm — ever. My free conscious choice to trust a local producer has nothing to do with government oversight. It has to do with the fact that the producer delivers his produce by hand himself. In other words, he can not afford to mess things up. He governs himself accordingly because he needs me as a repeat customer. I could buy cheap luncheon-meat at the grocery store any time I want.