[St. Blue Dude]

Curious if anyone here with knowledge of farming knows about this topic?
CNBC threw out a nice anti-trump article today.

‘Trump is ruining our markets’: Struggling farmers are losing a huge customer to the trade war — China
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/10/trump-is...china.html

Kind of a long article filled with cherry picking stats and anti-Trump quotes from specific farmers.

Here are what they say are Key Points:

• U.S. farmers lost their fourth largest export market this week after China officially cancelled all purchases of U.S. agricultural products, a retaliatory move following President Donald Trump’s pledge to slap 10% tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports.
  
• China’s exit piles on to a devastating year for farmers, who’ve struggled through record flooding and droughts that destroyed crop yields, and trade war escalations that have lowered prices and profits this year.
  
• “It’s really, really getting bad out here,” Bob Kuylen, a farmer of 35 years in North Dakota, told CNBC. “There’s no incentive to keep farming, except that I’ve invested everything I have in farming, and it’s hard to walk away.”
  

Of course, you have to read all the way down to the final paragraphs to find out this info:

• Trump’s approval rating among farmers is 79%
  
• A record-high number of farmers (78%) said the trade war will ultimately benefit U.S. agriculture
  
• More than 75% of rural farmers voted for Trump in the 2016 election.
  

China reduced farm purchases from 19 to 9 billion last year. (Trump's Bailout program is 16 billion)

Here is my question:

Over the last 6 years, farm income has dropped 45% from $123.4 billion in 2013 to $63 billion last year, according to the USDA.

According to this article, Farm Income is only 63 Billion from the entire US economy of 16 Trillion? Can that be correct?

And obviously the 6 year decline in Farm income...what is the cause of it?
Did Obama fuck up the farming industry with so much regulation that it has declined this much?
Has the amount of farm output declined?

[Papa Clutch]

I wonder if its a good thing the Chinese aren’t going to buy our AG product because of all the crop loss?!?  

[Lobster Boy]

The weather has fucked a lot of things up around here in cornfield corners, but I don't see many farmers selling their shiny 70K pickups yet.

In fact, I've seen none.

[FlyoverCountry]

Let em starve...fuckin dog boilers

[Lobster Boy]

Let em starve...fuckin dog boilers

Hopefully, the Brazilians will mix some rocks into their soybeans?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0iWECyQttg

[hurchel]

I can speak about hay...

Several years ago, in California, it was getting hard to find hay because the farmers were selling to China and getting more profit from them than they could get by selling it locally....

That is part of it, dependency on foreign trade profit...

Also at the market the other day, a lb of bacon was nearly 5 bucks.. I commented and the butcher said it was going to get worse because of China and pigs...

I thought we produced our own pigs, not imported from China.. but do not hold me to that...

Both Nixon and Bush signed strategic economics agreements with China Bush back in 1987...

The farmers have to regroup, but Trump is a city boy and he does not understand planning years in advance, he also does not seems to care about the welfare of animals. He needs some farm schooling....

[Thedudeabides]

Not true. The majority of American farmers now grow potatoes, corn, sugar beats, and soy beans. Most of which are uses for other purposes not just food.

[=42]

Curious if anyone here with knowledge of farming knows about this topic?  
CNBC threw out a nice anti-trump article today.

‘Trump is ruining our markets’: Struggling farmers are losing a huge customer to the trade war — China
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/10/trump-is...china.html

Kind of a long article filled with cherry picking stats and anti-Trump quotes from specific farmers.

Here are what they say are Key Points:

• U.S. farmers lost their fourth largest export market this week after China officially cancelled all purchases of U.S. agricultural products, a retaliatory move following President Donald Trump’s pledge to slap 10% tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports.
  
• China’s exit piles on to a devastating year for farmers, who’ve struggled through record flooding and droughts that destroyed crop yields, and trade war escalations that have lowered prices and profits this year.
  
• “It’s really, really getting bad out here,” Bob Kuylen, a farmer of 35 years in North Dakota, told CNBC. “There’s no incentive to keep farming, except that I’ve invested everything I have in farming, and it’s hard to walk away.”
  

Of course, you have to read all the way down to the final paragraphs to find out this info:

• Trump’s approval rating among farmers is 79%
  
• A record-high number of farmers (78%)  said the trade war will ultimately benefit U.S. agriculture
  
• More than 75% of rural farmers voted for Trump in the 2016 election.
  

China reduced farm purchases from 19 to 9 billion last year.   (Trump's Bailout program is 16 billion)  

Here is my question:

Over the last 6 years, farm income has dropped 45% from $123.4 billion in 2013 to $63 billion last year, according to the USDA.

According to this article, Farm Income is only 63 Billion from the entire US economy of 16 Trillion?  Can that be correct?  

And obviously the 6 year decline in Farm income...what is the cause of it?  
Did Obama fuck up the farming industry with so much regulation that it has declined this much?
Has the amount of farm output declined?

My take is its propaganda. These people (MSM) are telling us that losing China as a customer is dooming US farmers out of one side of their mouths and that we can't feed the world out of the other.

Who's to blame for the drop in income? IMO its the farmers themselves. This may be an over simplification, but they let the commodity markets set the price and even when they produce a crop at a loss, they don't hesitate to plant the same crop again. Of course government subsidies factor in as well keeping food costs artificially low.

Another example of this is the herring roe fishery in Alaska. After several years of low prices paid by the buyers, even though the quality was good, someone finally got the bright idea that they should have a price set before they catch the fish.

Overall, I think that the industrial scale (plow, poison, plant, fertilize, poison again, harvest) farming model supported by the USDA, FDA, etc... to the detriment of small natural system farms, needs to be re-examined to consider the nutritional value of the crops and the negative effects of human and soil health.

More on this topic discussed here.

https://the-fringe.com/thread-the_broken...ood+system

[=42]

I can speak about hay...

Several years ago, in California, it was getting hard to find hay because the farmers were selling to China and getting more profit from them than they could get by selling it locally....

That is part of it, dependency on foreign trade profit...

Also at the market the other day, a lb of bacon was nearly 5 bucks.. I commented and the butcher said it was going to get worse because of China and pigs...

I thought we produced our own pigs, not imported from China.. but do not hold me to that...

Both Nixon and Bush signed strategic economics agreements with China Bush back in 1987...

The farmers have to regroup, but Trump is a city boy and he does not understand planning years in advance, he also does not seems to care about the welfare of animals.  He needs some farm schooling....

China Bought some of our largest pork producers like Smithfield. Still raised here, but who decides what market it goes to?

[CSB]

Some farmers are looking into hemp ; this will build a new industry one we haven't had in 80 years . The economy is a balancing game at this point . It will take time
Hemp will change a lot of things from clothing to fuels even bottles and other containers; building materials . This will piss off the big oil and cotton and logging people but they will get over it . The only reason hemp was banned here in America is because industries lobbied to ban it .

Hemp will return
Here is a great video about the benefits of hemp