Groceries.... kind of sad...

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Tootsie

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Aug 22, 2020
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I just sorted a box of government food, which is offered pretty liberally around here and in many parts of the country. I am thankful that it is offered, and it does help. What doesn’t suit one family can easily be shared with others who will enjoy it. I am not in any way, shape, or form criticizing the program or those who may use it. Rather, I am reflecting on where these things come from. A visit to the grocery section at the dollar stores reveals the same.
Of 30 products, 13 came from China (fruit, vegetables, tuna), 2 from India (cereal and jelly) 2 from Mexico (pasta), 2 from United Arab Emerit (pasta), 2 from Brazil (rice), 1 from Egypt (jelly), and 7 came from the US (tomato sauce, beans, peanut butter). 4 of the 7 are products with bioengineered ingredients.
With a country as large as ours, which has and can produce about anything we need, why have we allowed it to come to this. Yes, we want cheap and easy. Yes, a large degree of apathy.
Change starts at home. A reminder to me to make more deliberate choices. Number one, can I provide it myself? Next, can I get it from someone else who produced it? If not, can I get it from a good domestic source?
Have a blessed day, everyone!
 
I completely understand where you're coming from, @Tootsie. I have nothing against those countries - just have to wonder why it is that we are so inefficient with food that we have to ship it from all over the world, when we can produce it right here at home. And the bioengineered stuff? Don't get me started.

But I'm like you - it's about the choices I make. I can't change anyone else, but I can make deliberate purchasing choices. And I discuss those choices with family, so that they, too, are inclined to make deliberate purchasing choices. At this time we are not producing anything ourselves (due to a business start-up and a home building), but we'll go back to having a large garden next year, and we're exploring animal options (beyond chickens, which we have). We buy beef direct from the farmer - milk, too.

And it's not just our food, but animal feed to consider, too. Can we produce it, can we get it locally, or can we get it domestically. And for us it's got to be non-GMO.
 
While we try to grow or harvest through subsistence activities, we still partially rely on store bought items. We try to purchase Alaskan made products as much as possible, but certainly we still need to rely on items shipped in.
 
I think it is important to support domestically produced products. Relying on others for your food is the limit of shortsightedness.. The to rely on someone who doesn't really like you, well that is just crazy...

I noticed on a package of paper goods yesterday that it was made in the USA with imported materials.... One of my pet peeves is people not realizing that assembled here is not the same as made here. If cars were all made here, the factories would not be hamstrung by CHIP shortages....
 
Farmers do what the government subsidies direct. If they will get more to grow corn, they'll grow corn. Broccoli doesn't pay. :) It would be nice if government didn't subsidize anything so farmers could just grow crops of food again.

That said, we should all be growing our own veggies. Heck, I'd like to see free boxes of containers, potting soil and seeds handed out!
 
I just sorted a box of government food, which is offered pretty liberally around here and in many parts of the country. I am thankful that it is offered, and it does help. What doesn’t suit one family can easily be shared with others who will enjoy it. I am not in any way, shape, or form criticizing the program or those who may use it. Rather, I am reflecting on where these things come from. A visit to the grocery section at the dollar stores reveals the same.
Of 30 products, 13 came from China (fruit, vegetables, tuna), 2 from India (cereal and jelly) 2 from Mexico (pasta), 2 from United Arab Emerit (pasta), 2 from Brazil (rice), 1 from Egypt (jelly), and 7 came from the US (tomato sauce, beans, peanut butter). 4 of the 7 are products with bioengineered ingredients.
With a country as large as ours, which has and can produce about anything we need, why have we allowed it to come to this. Yes, we want cheap and easy. Yes, a large degree of apathy.
Change starts at home. A reminder to me to make more deliberate choices. Number one, can I provide it myself? Next, can I get it from someone else who produced it? If not, can I get it from a good domestic source?
Have a blessed day, everyone!

I’m glad you brought this up.
This brings up many key issues that our system needs to tighten up on.

You brought up a great point of the system using the local products available to full fill the local demand first.

Yes, it costs more to increase the local branches of governing systems to coordinate the increased number of product facilities. This would produce more smaller local jobs, I would think.

Thank you for bringing this for discussion.
I’m intrigued...
 
Farmers do what the government subsidies direct. If they will get more to grow corn, they'll grow corn. Broccoli doesn't pay. :) It would be nice if government didn't subsidize anything so farmers could just grow crops of food again.

That said, we should all be growing our own veggies. Heck, I'd like to see free boxes of containers, potting soil and seeds handed out!

That’s what I’m talking about!
 
Farmers do what the government subsidies direct. If they will get more to grow corn, they'll grow corn. Broccoli doesn't pay. :) It would be nice if government didn't subsidize anything so farmers could just grow crops of food again.

Agreed. What irks me is the .gov actually pays farmers to NOT plant fields.

A friend of mine has 400 acres that they farm, some fields lay dormant for the season and the .gov cuts him a check.
 
Agreed. What irks me is the .gov actually pays farmers to NOT plant fields.

A friend of mine has 400 acres that they farm, some fields lay dormant for the season and the .gov cuts him a check.

@Curmudgeon ,

would you mind a quick clarification,

Does it lay dormant because he has to?
Or
Does it lay dormant because he gets a check for it to lay dormant?
 
Does it lay dormant because he gets a check for it to lay dormant?

This^^

They pay him to NOT plant the field. I can't remember exactly what the plan is, but it's based on how much soy beans, corn etc is in stockpiles around the country.

I don't remember all of the details, I just know I was a bit taken aback when he told me this.
 
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land.
Effective: May 12, 1933
Enacted by: the 73rd United States Congress
Other short titles: Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, The Farm Relief Bill
Titles amended: 7 U.S.C.: Agriculture
 
This^^

They pay him to NOT plant the field. I can't remember exactly what the plan is, but it's based on how much soy beans, corn etc is in stockpiles around the country.

I don't remember all of the details, I just know I was a bit taken aback when he told me this.
Yes this is real.
The govt does this to prevent an overabundance of a crop from driving the price so low that all the farmers go bankrupt.
I knew plenty of farmers that made good money 'not-farming'.
Others used the crop-insurance scam. Pretend to plant hundreds of acres, pay $15 per acre for subsidized insurance.
At the end of the year get paid $1,000 per acre because nothing grew. :thumbs:
They would do this every year, for decades.
How many acres could you get to 'fail'?
 
In the ‘80s I found out that many area farmers were being paid to not produce. I think it’s still going on.
Urban mentioned paper products. I’d mention the brand, but don’t want to stir the pot. This company made all brands, just changing the packaging and adjusting the materials to whether it was THE brand or labeled store brand. Anyway, what was made in USA since it was available now arrives via container from our not so favorite country. You’d have to be really good to catch it as it’s pretty well hidden. I really wonder how it can be cheaper to send paper plates from China. Maybe another question should be, what’s in that paper?
 
Yes this is real.
The govt does this to prevent an overabundance of a crop from driving the price so low that all the farmers go bankrupt.
I knew plenty of farmers that made good money 'not-farming'.
Others used the crop-insurance scam. Pretend to plant hundreds of acres, pay $15 per acre for subsidized insurance.
At the end of the year get paid $1,000 per acre because nothing grew. :thumbs:
They would do this every year, for decades.
How many acres could you get to 'fail'?
As one who grew up on a corn and soybeans farm, at ground zero of corn and soybeans production in the United States, I can tell you with utmost certainty that the farmers ARE NOT in any way paid to not plant crops. That happened during the Great Depression. Farmers are paid subsidies ONLY if they plant crops. Farmers get subsidies for raising a crop and they more acres they plant, the more subsidies they get. They get subsidized insurance for those crops. They are sometimes eligible for loans at ridiculously low interest rates. (My brother was able to buy a piece of equipment with a loan at one half of one percent interest through a government program.) I am not in favor of subsidies. I wish we could be rid of them. But in the current global climate it is not possible. All major grain producing nations subsidize their farmers. If America stopped, our grain industry would be sunk. And unfortunately, that would destroy the economy.

Now, I am not familiar with commodities like wheat and milk. Wheat is not grown in here in Iowa, and dairy is a small industry. But I've not heard of any acres being left fallow or dairy farmers paid not to produce...

Edit: in the '80s we were paid to produce. We were not paid to leave anything fallow or to produce any alternatives. The government bought those crops. As to what happened to those crops, I still don't know...
 
Was just talking subsidies with a farmer amish cousin of mine. He says he doesn't buy the insurance, so his loss is his loss. He went certified organic, so he can get more money, but he finds his own buyers.
I wonder what kind of yields he gets using Amish farming methods, compared to the yield he gets from non organic. In modern farming, even though organic crop prices are higher, the yield is so much lower that there's no way to make any money...
 
He did better than he expected in yields last year on soybeans. The amish guys are critics...they ride by to check out his fields. He only has under 200 acres. Tractors are allowed in our community, but the community this particular cousin originally grew up in (Indiana), tractors were not used. Just a horse team. He has a consistent buyer for organic hay, he stores it in our roundtop, and it gets sold and loaded up at our farm. Organic soybeans get more than non, and it appears to be worth it, even with a bit smaller yield. His new venture is selling young Angus, organic beef. He buys newborn angus calves for $300 to $400 at the Tuesday sales here (he is a sale helper), raises them up awhile on organic feed that he grows. And is looking at a new buyer for those that'll pick up...a meat place that has locations in TX and MO. Around here it's wheat, corn, soybean (mostly), alfalfa. We just have 15 acres of alfalfa, and the other 8 acres is our home, fowl, a few fruit trees and a kitchen garden. Wouldn't hardly call us a farm.
 
Conservation Reserve and Grassland Reserve federal programs both pay not to plant. There’s another for Wetlands, too.
They do. And we've used those. But there's a catch there - those are used for land that doesn't produce much, and they generally don't pay much. Most of that land has been returned to production over the last 20 years. We still have some highly erodable, sandy ground in CRP. The wetland programs required what I believe was a 50 year commitment, to block the tiles draining the land and return it to its natural marshy state.

We planted grass buffer strips along the creeks, 100 feet wide, in order to qualify for a federal program. But we found that the money in that program equaled much less than what would be made planting crops on it so we did not renew it. I wish it would have been economically viable to continue...

CRP acres are insignificant. It's hardly worth considering in the grand scheme of things...
 
As one who grew up on a corn and soybeans farm, at ground zero of corn and soybeans production in the United States, I can tell you with utmost certainty that the farmers ARE NOT in any way paid to not plant crops. ...
Not only is that program still going just fine, it's getting an upgrade this year!:woo hoo:
https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conservation-reserve-crp-usda-vilsack/

"The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would expand a program that pays farmers to leave land fallow, part of a broader, government-wide effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The new initiative will incentivize farmers to take land out of production by raising rental rates and incentive payments.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was created in 1985 to incentivize landowners to leave some of their marginal land unplanted, a plan meant to protect the environment by reducing agricultural runoff into streams and rivers, preserving wildlife habitats, and preventing erosion. Today, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) “rents” about 21 million acres of farmland from landowners, typically for 10 years at a time—a tiny fraction of the total land farmed nationwide. In recent years, the number of acres enrolled in CRP has fallen, possibly because USDA’s rental payments have not been competitive with the open market, Chuck Abbott reported for FERN News.

The new announcement is a bid to incentivize farmers to enroll 4 million more acres of land in the program to total 25 million acres, the current program limit. “Sometimes the best solutions are right in front of you,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a press release. "
 
Not only is that program still going just fine, it's getting an upgrade this year!:woo hoo:
https://thecounter.org/biden-administration-farmers-conservation-reserve-crp-usda-vilsack/

"The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would expand a program that pays farmers to leave land fallow, part of a broader, government-wide effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The new initiative will incentivize farmers to take land out of production by raising rental rates and incentive payments.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was created in 1985 to incentivize landowners to leave some of their marginal land unplanted, a plan meant to protect the environment by reducing agricultural runoff into streams and rivers, preserving wildlife habitats, and preventing erosion. Today, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) “rents” about 21 million acres of farmland from landowners, typically for 10 years at a time—a tiny fraction of the total land farmed nationwide. In recent years, the number of acres enrolled in CRP has fallen, possibly because USDA’s rental payments have not been competitive with the open market, Chuck Abbott reported for FERN News.

The new announcement is a bid to incentivize farmers to enroll 4 million more acres of land in the program to total 25 million acres, the current program limit. “Sometimes the best solutions are right in front of you,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a press release. "
Yup. And like I said, this will be land that is not productive, and it won't affect grain prices much if at all. It will provide a bit of wildlife habitat, it may or may not provide a bit of protection to water sources, it will waste a comparitively small amount of federal money...but in the end, it will affect almost nothing. The 25 million acre limit sounds like a lot. But in the grand scheme of things, it's a little freckle on Uncle Sam's butt...
 
I am "not" sure how far I will to go down the road of talking about those food boxes. I have actually started threads three times on that subject, but I deleted them before posting, because I lacked the enthusiasm to defend that program. However what is interesting to me, is that they can't find enough people to accept the boxes and who also meet whatever requirements.

The storage buildings are packed, and more boxes are constantly arriving. My point is that if you qualify........you would be helping yourself and others by being a recipient. So I encourage those qualified to set aside any negative attitudes towards those programs.
 
I am "not" sure how far I will to go down the road of talking about those food boxes. I have actually started threads three times on that subject, but I deleted them before posting, because I lacked the enthusiasm to defend that program. However what is interesting to me, is that they can't find enough people to accept the boxes and who also meet whatever requirements.

The storage buildings are packed, and more boxes are constantly arriving. My point is that if you qualify........you would be helping yourself and others by being a recipient. So I encourage those qualified to set aside any negative attitudes towards those programs.
I never heard of food boxes, I do recall DW getting greens & lettuce from a niece who was on snap, because they did not eat it. She was 5'2" & 300 lbs.
& did not eat greens.
 
Well, I recently picked up a huge box of commodities just to see what they contained. Although I financially qualify for commodities, I probably will not be back for more.

The contents of the box looked a lot like what most people usually put on the checkout counter at any grocery store: lots of absolute junk food, sweets, snacks, and stuff you really can't make a nutritionally sound meal with. I gave almost all of it away.

No wonder Americans have so many health problems: blood pressure issues, diabetes, clogged arteries... Many who can afford nutritious food don't bother cooking real food, preferring to settle for foods that come out of boxes and cans. Those who are poor, get pure junk food in commodities.

BUT, the commodity box wasn't a total loss. I did snag a sandwich-sized plastic bag of beans and a one-pound bag of rice! And a bag of walnuts (score!).
 
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Farmers do what the government subsidies direct. If they will get more to grow corn, they'll grow corn. Broccoli doesn't pay. :) It would be nice if government didn't subsidize anything so farmers could just grow crops of food again.

That said, we should all be growing our own veggies. Heck, I'd like to see free boxes of containers, potting soil and seeds handed out!

We have a small farm ( goats sheep chicken veggies, some fruit) We sell at the farmers market. We make a little money on meat and eggs, very little on veggies, and a lot on bread. Flour is still made in the U.S. and it's cheap. I do buy stuff from other countries because they are mostly not grown where we live ( bananas, jasmin rice from Thailand, cooking ingredients from all over Asia, mangoes , I will have to look and see where the pasta is made)
Broccoli indeed does not pay, but it isn't going to help paying farmers to produce it, if people WON'T eat it!! Americans seem to want to mostly eat meat and bread.
 
We had a neighbor, single guy and would go to get these boxes. One time he called me and told me to come over. He wanted me to go thru it. They gave him womens vitamins, expired yogurt and i mean expired, food items that seemed to come from a store that was throwing the items out. To me it was a waste and a shame that they dont even put thought into what they are giving.
 
The storage buildings are packed, and more boxes are constantly arriving. My point is that if you qualify........you would be helping yourself and others by being a recipient. So I encourage those qualified to set aside any negative attitudes towards those programs.

We would qualify because our income is so low but there is no way I would do it. It would be sad for a farmer to go get free food....( plus we don't need it and don't want to take it from someone that does)
 
When I was in college (30+ years ago) with 3 kids, the wife picked up a box from 2 places, one was you just had to qualify for assistance, the other you had to show you have done community service. We found that about half of the food was good (like a block of cheese, beans, rice...) but a lot of it you had to check it over and eat it fast as it was already starting to rot... That being said back then it was humiliating to have to take handouts, but when you are down to eating beans over rice, anything is an improvement....
 
I completely understand where you're coming from, @Tootsie. I have nothing against those countries - just have to wonder why it is that we are so inefficient with food that we have to ship it from all over the world, when we can produce it right here at home....

Union labor and government regulations make local produced products too expensive to be affordable.
 
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