Why Farmers Always Win

Why farmers always push for protection and.. (get this) why they always get it.

0:00 Farmer Protests
1:57 American Sugar
5:28 BetterHelp
6:56 It's Everywhere!
9:31 The EU-CAP
12:44 Indian Farm Bills
15:10 Economic Theory??
16:48 Theory into Practice
18:54 Haitian Rice
21:54 I want $2.02 off Cheese, NOW!

[ccRabbit]

Who needs farmers? I get my food from the supermarket

[Tathanic]

Australia has this problem where there is a duopoly they dont pay the farmer enough and overcharge the consumers as well

[doomepic]

One big problem is the supermarkets here in Romania. They charge so much and give so little back to the producer. People have started buying from local warehouses that sell with only +5% added fee (compared to the 80% of the cheapest supermarket)!

[AllPileup]

Never expect a video with the title "I Want $0.76 off Carrots- NOW!!", but here we are, and I love it

[owenglover]

In Australia our problem is that the two main supermarkets buy the produce for cheap then sell it for 5 times the price. Because we only have two main companies running it all the consumers and the farmers get fucked.

[talexratcliffe]

Yeah, not sure this is the hill to die on.

Being dependent on another nation for your agriculture is not a good place to be.

[NapoleanBlown-aparte]

First title: GIVE ME MY 0.76 CARROTS NOW!!!
second title: Why farmers always win-no matter the cost
Third title:how to destroy a country..using rice
Edit: 4th title: why farmers always win

[itisWhatitis]

It's backfired in India though. Instead of switching to other crops they stick to the same over supplied crops selling to the govt.
*The consequence* : The water level is depleted so much that agriculture is becoming increasingly more expensive and since the same crops are oversupplied they've gotten even cheaper creating a burden on the govt to keep buying wasteful amounts of food.

[magnuszerum]

Grain is so cheap in the US, it is cheaper to burn actual food to stay warm in the winter than to burn sawdust pellets. Sometimes efficiency isn't the most important thing. Sometimes it is better to keep some inefficiencies in place for more reliability and functionality.

[xsham]

everyone knows hoser was short 76 cents on his groceries and came here to complain

[skootzkadoodles]

As a CAP policy analyst i was so weirdly excited you covered this 😂 fun fact: cheddar cheese is so popular and cheap in Ireland because it is an easy method of using up the leftovers from making whey protein powder, which is worth a lot more per gram :D

[BlueprintScience]

Farmers in the Netherlands were actually protesting nitrogen limiting environmental policy that made it impossible for small farms to profit.
This video in incredibly reductive in claiming that farmers just want to raise prices.

[carterjanssen]

As a Candadian I can say the Dairy Cartel is no joke. Real cheese is a luxury good.

[griffinbastion]

Can't believe you listed France twice but not Poland even once

[mikel]

Farmers always win for 3 reasons.
1. They keep to themselves unless really bothered. People generally know this, that's why everyone see farmers as honest hard working folk.
2. Farming is flipping hard, and even harder to make a profit at small to mid sized scales in modern countries with a lot of regulations.
3. We all need to eat, if you crush farmers or piss them off to much millions starve, ask the Chinese, Russians, and Ukraineins what happens when you fuck around with farming too much.

[TheAcreanCandidate]

Really wish you had discussed food independence more. That's one of the main factors motivating these subsidies. Its perfectly reasonable, at least to me, that nations are heavily invested (figuratively and literally) in ensuring that their people have the food they need if there are global shocks in the market. Its basically a massive insurance program: everyone pays a bit to ensure that the food supply doesn't fall to crap in the face of a multinational war or famine.

[jesseparrish]

I'm reminded of Clarkson's farm. He had worked for an entire year and the total profit, without subsidy, was a few hundred bucks. Farmers basically break even most of the time, and the amount of work and risk is simply not comparably paid as compared to similarly-skilled fields like engineering. Forget the up front investment and risk.

Food subsidies are here to stay.

[robertvanderlinden]

A little correction here, farmers aren't pushing for higher food prices, they want more money for their crops as most farmers are living on the brink of seeying their next harvest or their farm taken over by gouvernments who build the land full, plus supermarkets and factories earn more than tripple the cash from the same product in weight, the market your purchase from makes about double they give out on product and factories about quadruple

[mgwoodland]

Plum Farmer from South Africa here in a country without subsidies.

I don't think it can be understated how much power the supermarkets wield when it comes to manipulating the price of produce for the end consumer.

My input costs have increased by at least 30% over the last 4 years since the pandemic, yet, the supermarkets in the UK want to pay us less than what they paid us before the pandemic. As a result we've been forced to send our fruit to the USA, who are willing to pay a fair price. A fair price is one where we aren't losing money on a sale.

As a food producer we truly are at the mercy of supply and demand in the worst possible way. Over-supply in a market during a good season (good weather) means higher input costs and lower prices, while under-supply in a bad season (bad weather) means lower input costs, higher prices, but less product shipped.

I personally think that subsidies are important for farming to be sustainable in the long run due to weather variability and climate change, but it needs to be done properly. A way that minimizes waste and encourages efficiencies.

The EU is a case in point of overprotective markets. Spanish farmers for years have been lobbying for ridiculous export requirements, which they themselves aren't able to comply with. Their deciduous fruit industry has had no reason to innovate due to lack of competition. This is a situation where everyone loses.

The cherry on top is that we supply them during periods when it's out of their season. So why even put trade barriers in place?

[t.xaviersalgado]

Agriculture is almost like having a army, you don't want to rely exclusively in the protection of other countries