'US agriculture has very little centralized planning--just a bunch of farmers, suppliers, wholesalers and retailers looking out for their own individual interests. It's a very complex system with tremendous interdependencies, but no one planned it and no one controls it. I think everyone knows the relative productivity of the two systems, and how that story ended. "
Which agriculture are you describing? Certainly not the USA
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Impact of U.S. Subsidies[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]
Efforts to decipher the causes of the present crisis have cast a spotlight on one of the U.S.’s most visible and, for most, egregious examples of hypocrisy and double-speak: the extremely high level of U.S. government payments to farmers while simultaneously encouraging other countries to reduce domestic agricultural supports. Although these payments have technically fallen within our support reduction commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO), they have risen dramatically since 1996 and stand as a testament to U.S. admonitions to “do as I say, not as I do,” when it comes to trade liberalization. The severe drop in farm income that would have occurred in the absence of this compensation has been cushioned by these payments, which exceeded $20 billion annually for the last several years.....[/FONT]
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Subsidies are U.S. government payments made directly to producers. Most critics of these payments, which nearly tripled since the key turning point of 1996, point to their role in increasing production, thereby glutting the market and forcing prices lower. Instead, this study provides evidence to show that the relationship is far from a linear one, with the reality far more complex than many would have us believe. U.S. production of the eight major crops [/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]
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increased as land previously idled by government set-aside programs was brought back on-line. In the absence of traditional supply management and price support tools, prices declined sharply. Faced with drastic impacts on net farm income, the U.S. government responded by paying farmers compensatory sums to help close the gap. [/FONT]
Rethinking U.S. Agricultural Policy by Daryll Ray, Daniel De La Torre Ugarte, Kelly Tiller / Rural America / In Motion Magazine[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]
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