Food (& other agriculture)

Overview: The US government has monopolized food crops used to produce unhealthy processed foods with subsidies, health care that has led to poor nutritional guidance, and all industries which has reduced wages available for people to afford healthy foods. 

4_Food.jpg  

(1) Agriculture Sector Supply Chain

Farming = Seeds, Fruits, Vegetables, Grain, Cattle, Pig, Poultry, Fish, Sugar
Farming (non-food) = Tobacco, Cotton, Flax, Hemp, Sheep, Forestry,
Manufacturing = Process Food, Meat, Dairy, Beverage
Manufacturing (non-food) = Tobacco Products, Clothing, Wood Products
Wholesale = Assemble/Store/Transport, International Traders
Service = Restaurants, Drinking
Stores = Supermarkets, Grocery, Food, Beverage, Health/beauty, Cleaners
Other = Clothing Stores 

(2) Regulations favoring monopolies, history 

Unhealthy food consumption caused by US government regulations favoring monopolies:

> monopolized health care industry provides unproven and confusing nutritional guidance
> monopolies reduce wages available to afford healthy foods
> monopolizing food crops by subsidizing those used to produce potentially unhealthy processed foods 

US government subsidies favoring potentially unhealthy foods:

> conventional food crops like feed grains, such as corn, grain sorghum, barley and oats, oilseeds such as soybeans, and also wheat, rice, peanuts and sugar crops are favored with subsidized insurance, subsidy payments (which are linked to past prices and productivity), a guaranteed price floor
> conventional non-food crops like cotton, tobacco and grains and oilseeds used for biofuel also subsidized and ethanol has a mandate
> milk and meat products, such as beef, pork, and lamb and mutton, are favored with feed crop subsidies and $550 million for advertising 

Regulations, including subsidies, favoring a few conventional crops favor:

> large seed and GMO companies (eg Monsanto)
> crop lobbies (e.g., Corngrowers)
> monoculture farms
> corporate crop and animal farms
> large manufacturing companies
> large international trading conglomerates
> Developed over Developing Countries 

Beef Packing concentrating but declining due substitution by other meats 

10b14792300045225.jpg 

 (3) Monopolies are leading to economic and health problems 

> Crop subsidies cost taxpayers $20 billion a year, cause environmental problems including use of more fertilizer and water, and block more cost-competitive and human healthy alternative agricultural crops, value-added agriculture and agricultural development in both developed and developing nations.
> Dairy and meat production and use is relatively unhealthy, inefficient, uses five times more land and even more times more water than producing plant protein, produces animal waste and is a leading cause of climate change. US food exports are falling because many countries don't like U.S. food processing standards.

(4) Economic problems can be solved by deregulation reform

> need competitive health care sector that promotes preventive care through nutrition
> eliminate crop subsidies
> eliminate US government regulations favoring milk and meat products

 

Spread the word Contribute