It’s really not. Without subsidies, farms could not exist; we simply don’t pay enough for produce to keep them running. You could argue that subsidies are to keep the public onside. If you were the party who removed subsidies (and increased food prices by 50%), it would be political suicide.

I've never quite followed the math on this argument for subsidies. Government subsidies are still payed by us, the money is funneled through taxes and government budgets but it's not like a subsidy appears out of thin air.

This is also does in the face of free markets. If we keep process artificially low we won't see any explanation in production. That keeps prices high and sticks us in a loop where we need subsidies because prices are too high and can't reduce price because there's no market incentive.

Free market is the reason you need the subsidies, otherwise import tariffs.

European production costs around labour, regulations etc would be drastically undercut by foreign low cost markets and you would lose food sovereignty due to foreign imports.

Of course subsidies do introduce distortion but they are often simpler globally than tic for tat tariffs.

I'm not so sure if subsidizing a handful of industries avoids the problem of cost imbalances when trading globally.

Say we subsidize corn because otherwise our corn industry would be decimated by cheap labor overseas. We successfully walled off one industry, but that cheaper foreign labor is still available for other production. Maybe workers that would be paid overseas to grow corn are instead paid to produce cheaper clothing that we can't compete with. We can't keep subsidizing one industry at a time in hopes of dodging a fundamental supply abstracts the other country has.

Tariffs can be an option there *if* imposed on all imports from one country. They have their own practical issues though, not least of all is enforcement. NATO made a huge deal about banning Russian oil when the war started but they still sell it just fine, often as crude oil to another country that refines it and still sells it to us anyway.

I doubt it's expected to be holistic, and there's not much point tariffing a commodity you don't have a viable alternative locally such as oil; Autarky is unlikely to viable in the long run.

Though chemical fertilizer is likely a common weak point for food security with many countries. But this is not a new problem, the US pacific island grab in the 1800s to source Guano shows how regenerating soil macro nutrients has been a centuries old problem that countries have had grapple with.

At one point not too long ago the US was producing up to 90% of our own oil supply, is that not the case anymore or am I misremembering that all together?

To clarify, I don't recall if that was actually kep in country or the net import/export comparison, we may have been making enough to cover something like 90% but exporting that overseas.

Anyway, 100% agree fertilizer has been a problem for a long time. As long as we treat food production as an broken loop where farms are dependant on outside resources rather than building sustainable farming systems we'll always be stuck trying to steal someone else's nutrients in the form of fertilizer.

I think the point being made here is that it may be worth walling off the agriculture industry specifically due to a country’s desire to maintain food security. A worldwide clothing shortage is not as big of a concern, which may be a reason you don’t see the same strategy applied there.

Edit: actually my mistake, that point was made in a separate thread. I think my point still stands though.

It's a fair point for sure. Wish I had links handy and I'll see if they can find solid references. My understanding is that a huge proportion of us crop production is in three or four crops and that most f that production is traded internationally. Meaning, we produce plenty of corn and a few others but we export that and still import a big chunk of my ur actual food supply (or at least the raw materials processed into our food supply).

I'm happy to be wrong there though it's been a while now since I went down that rabbit hole!

To be clear, I'm not arguing for subsidies; just that if they stopped completely and the prices paid by supermarkets / consumers didn't increase, the farms would go out of business.

That too, but the benefit of food security is there regardless of the motive.

Not just that. If you don't have farming going on - and it often requires subsidies to keep it going - even Netherlands have subsidised agriculture, your food security will just disappear.

I am not sure why people don't seem to understand this. If a nation ever finds itself dependent on a neighbour for water, food, electricity, oil etc, they are going to be in big trouble when it comes to any sort of negotiations.

The truth is that agricultural land is under tremendous pressure. It is far more lucrative to just build apartments or commercial real estate on farming land than it is to sustain agriculture. Subsidies are used to incentivize farmers to continue farming instead of disposing of their land.