Hacker News Reader

Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

Not necessarily true.

There are a few other notable sets of subsidies:

- Irrigation water in the US is artificially cheap for farmers

- The US offers several Export Credit Guarantee programs (the WTO has specifically found to be illegal internationally): https://www.fas.usda.gov/programs/export-credit-guarantee-pr...

- There are amply funded Conservation programs - which can often involve payments to do nothing with certain pieces of land: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-...

- And bigger than anything, over half of all direct payments to farms are from Commodity programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_programs https://farm.ewg.org/region.php

View on HN

> over half of all direct payments to farms are from Commodity programs

As you can see in your second link, the direct payments ended under Obama. All of the remaining programs for commodity producers are insurance-based.

Perhaps what you are trying to say is that there are time travellers coming to us from the past to tell us about how things used to be (from our perspective)? But why would anyone listen to them?

The site still reports commodity payments for the last several years - I don't know where you are getting that from: https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total&yr...

And it does seem the government continues to give direct payments to farmers - even though it is under the guise of the insurance program: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/news-room/news-releases/2021/usda-p...

I would also not call the price protection programs an insurance program. Being able to sell at a certain price seems like a pretty strong and direct subsidy.

And the export credit, which is not overseen by the USDA at all, continues.

> The site still reports commodity payments for the last several years

And when you look the breakdown you'll see when direct payments ended. Insurance is going to pay out, yes. That's what insurance is for...

> I would also not call the price protection programs an insurance program.

I would. It is setup as an insurance system. Price/income insurance isn't uncommon, even outside of agriculture. If you work as an employee, you are afforded access to similar insurance.

Irrigation water is only cheap from a demand perspective. There is no subsidy in that case, simply the lack of a free market and poor resource allocation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com