Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Why Subsidize?

I believe farmers should be able to get insurance because that does decrease the risk of investing into to agriculture, but that insurance should not be paid by taxpayers. Having subsidies for agriculture is just as ridiculous as having subsidies for oil, and say this as a graduating petroleum engineer. The risk of doing business should be dealt with by the private sector with insurance premiums paid by the farmers to the private insurers. The insurance industry is booming and it makes total sense why. This is why I believe farmers should treat their farm investment the same as investors treat their investment portfolios on the financial markets or any diversified portfolio. I do not understand why the government feels it is obligated to subsidize an entire industry when that is the job of the private sector. I am convinced the private sector would do a much better job than the government, but this change should take place over many years. No shock will do any good, but what is temporary is permanent for that very reason. Many governments take a certain degree of control over agriculture. 

A point of contention is that the article says how 75% of subsidies go to just 10% of farms, but that’s irrelevant information because it just says that large farms account for a large portion of production. I also hear a lot about organic food and how it’s better for health, but many times I’m not sure if the we can do that en masse. It was one of the things that was interesting for me to consider when thinking about how we could make people healthier, but it only seems to make the subsidies worse. Just not sure if subsidizing organic food would be worth it if it could cut healthcare costs, and that was just food for thought to me. 

No comments:

Post a Comment