Farms that create habitat key to food security and biodiversity

Re:Farms that create habitat key to food security and biodiv... by kasey_junk on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @08:30AM (#37390765)

Food forests also don’t do well producing the most highly subsidized crops (rice, cotton, feed corn & soy, etc).

I don’t know if they’d be viable vs non-subsidized farms either but in the US it is really hard to have a conversation about farm profitability without looking at how the government puts their finger on the scales.

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Re:Farms that create habitat key to food security and biodiv... by bluGill on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @09:29AM (#37391370)

US farm subsidies come in two forms: crop insurance (for the major crops you list) that ensure farmers can have some bad years/crop failures and not lose the farm; and CRP where the government "rents" marginal land so that farmers don't attempt to farm it (in drought years they will allow taking one crop of hay).

At one time there were a lot more subsidies, but not anymore.

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Re:Farms that create habitat key to food security and biodiv... by kasey_junk on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @04:23PM (#37397207)

There are all manner of “hidden” subsidies for commodity agriculture. The CFTC for instance runs out reach on agg derivatives even when they are low volume contracts (cheese).

https://www.cftc.gov/Agriculture

Not fitting into the norm in this case costs more than it would for other innovations.

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