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A comment on U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss. Parent comment

Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by pm90 on Friday August 16, 2019 @08:50PM (#20721137)
NZ is nowhere near the size of the US though. If you face a famine in NZ, you import from Australia, China, India etc. If you have a famine in US... millions of people will be without food, it would be an insanely crazy situation (consider how many firearms are held by ordinary Americans).

The modern American life is very strongly predicated on cheap, abundant supply of _some_ kinds of nutrition (unhealthy for most, but still, something that prevents starvation even if it increases the chances of heart disease etc.)

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by EdwardDiego on Friday August 16, 2019 @09:08PM (#20721225)
> If you face a famine in NZ, you import from Australia, China, India

If is the key point here. We've never been anywhere close to a famine despite our farmers operating in an unprotected market.

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by thomasz on Saturday August 17, 2019 @06:32AM (#20723249)
NZ has a very small population and absolutely no systemic importance. It’s not remotely comparable to the US.
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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by EdwardDiego on Sunday August 18, 2019 @02:50AM (#20728662)
Some great exceptionalism there. So, you subsidise corn farmers because of global geopolitics? Occam's Razor suggests myriad other explanations.
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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by pm90 on Sunday August 18, 2019 @01:36PM (#20731609)
Nothing you're saying makes any sense. As others have tried to say, the population + landmass of NZ make it statistically insignificant compared to US.
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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by EdwardDiego on Sunday August 18, 2019 @06:21PM (#20733333)
Which is completely irrelevant to my discussion of how removing protectionist policies increased the efficiency of our agricultural sector.
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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by pm90 on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @10:33AM (#20747419)
It’s relevant if your hypothesis is that it will have the same effect in the US, which I’m tired of saying at this point that it WONT.
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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by iamshs on Friday August 16, 2019 @09:01PM (#20721187)
So stopping subsidies for corn will impact other crops too? Isn’t nutrition diverse nowadays?

Edit: Answered. Corn is used as a cattle feed and hence beef prices will be impacted. It will have a chain reaction pulling down just corn subsidies.

Tangent: India used to have famines and import grains until Punjab ushered a green revolution with record wheat and rice harvests in 1960s. My grandma told me how before wheat barley used to be the nutritional source, and I for nostalgia sake asked for a barley dish. Nearly threw up.

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by Marsymars on Saturday August 17, 2019 @01:27AM (#20722285)
Huh. I like barley quite a lot. Doesn't seem like it really has enough flavour to be offensive enough to induce vomiting though.
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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by wott on Saturday August 17, 2019 @08:20AM (#20723646)
Perhaps it is not the taste but the shape/size and consistency of the boiled grain. For those who don't know, it looks like Kellogg's Smacks, but more chewy, and it can feel a bit strange to chew or to swallow.

I like it as well, nevertheless.

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by iamshs on Saturday August 17, 2019 @06:20PM (#20726795)
Sorry, should be Bajra. Pearl Millet.
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