Why shouldn't food be free?

I was at a political debate a while ago with two of my local MPs, and I asked the question - "why isn't food free?"


Lib Dem - "Because they gave food away in the roman empire"

Labour - "Because they used to make people work for food in the workhouses"

Neither of these answered my question at all. I was wondering if anyone here could answer my question.

My reasons for asking being:

Farmer's are subsidised (by the tax-payer), coincidentally, approximately the value of the food they produce. We then pay twice this value to buy food because of the inflated prices caused by the subsidies. Add on to that the mark-up by the supermarket, and the added cost to the taxpayer of paying out benefits so the unemployed, sick, disabled etc can afford to buy this over-priced food. Wouldn't it just be simpler, to pay the farmers TO produce food, and make food free?

We should be protesting for this shouldn't we?

 

What difference does it make if we pay them to make food, or they get money from the food sales? They're still going to get paid, and food is still going to be manufactured, I don't understand the difference. It's all still the same process

 

Basically that's what we do, that and pay them for the raw materials and equipment. Farming is simply a form of labor, like textile workers who manufacture clothing or anything else.

Food would be hard to make 'free' unless you also paid the fertilizer and farming equipment industry, food processing plants, distributors, warehouses, retail outlets, and others. Putting a retail value on the end product just affords an easy way to get every one paid for the work they have put into the product, at least in theory. Trying to subsidize and regulate every component involved in getting the food from the farm to the consumer would only increase government bureaucracy, which would probably triple the current cost of food to the taxpayers. And not everyone who eats pays taxes

 

You're not understanding me. We pay farmers (in the UK at least, I think it's the same in the states but I could be wrong) depending on how much land they own which isn't being used to produce food. This reduces supply and pushes prices up for the remaining crops - which we then pay twice the true value for. I for one would work on a farm or drive a truckfull of food to a supermarket or both if it meant free food, I would also not mind a more warehouse type layout to reduce the need for shelf stackers, and I'd drive a forklift to unload the trucks - that would be fun. Think how much cheaper it would be to run a supermarket if you didn't need anyone working on the checkouts or doing the accounts. Dull as fuck jobs that no one should be forced to do if it's not entirely necessary.
Volunteering shouldn't be so hard to do. If you want to help out, you should have that right whenever you want - even if it's just for a day. You shouldn't have to prove yourself worthy of doing the simplest work. If the gates were open (to the supermarkets and farms), I'm sure some of the people who walked in would want to work in exchange for what they took. And farming is so amazingly efficient in modern times.

"Not everyone who eats pays taxes"
I hope you were being facetious. I for one do not begrudge anyone the right to eat.

 

but you dont pay for food, you pay for people to grow it, bring it to you, and the many services involved in between. we pay per item of food because that is the best way of gaugeing how much work is to be payed for, and the price of food depends on how easy it is to do all teh services above, and teh subject to whatever extra costs the companies that bring the food to you want (its their right to charge whatever.. which sucks of course).

free food is definately avaiable, if you grow it yourself. if someone else grows it and gives it to you then thats nice of them, but then your asking a question of 'why doesnt everyone just do everything for free'.

what you want is theoretical communism (which is never successful unfortunately because it doesnt take into account human nature), whereby everyone does their bit for the community, and everyone is allowed the same rights to foods and services and clothes, as long as everyone is doing their part for society.

however in real life, this means that people must be given a quota of resources, because otherwise some people would get more than others simply because they can... meaning less food for others. so instead, we determine how much food someone can have by how much money they can provide.

the problem here is that not all money is gained from the same level of service to the community, and not all people have any money at all, yet everyone should be allowed food.


food should not be free, people should jsut stop paying so much for food and grow their own, forcing the commercial market to downsize and become less evil

 

Yeah, you're right, you've seen through me. I'm a communist. But this, surely, is universal common sense. They (the government who supposedly represent us) are using our money to make it more expensive for us to buy food.

!!?!?

Modern farming methods make growing food virtually effortless. That's why it's so damn cheap (or should be). Considering the amount of work that's necessary to produce food for hundreds of people, it couldn't be hard to do it. As long as volunteering was allowed. Did you read my last post?

 

If food isn't put under lock and key then how could the elite control the general population? Putting food under lock and key ensures that we have to pay for it, and therefore labour for it - continuing to give wealth and power to those in control.

Paying for it is a step up from them just taking us as thier slaves and forcing us to preform tasks for them for sustenance until our death, but only about a baby step.

Stockpiling food and controlling it's distribution was basically the beginning of the society we created and live in today. We all lived a very differnt way before that - we were hunter-gatherers.

Some say this way of life has lead to our greatest accomplishments, but to great human suffering as well.



Edit: BTW, communism is still the elite controlling the distribution of food. In order for food to be truely free we would have to do a MASSIVE change in the way we live, basically, invent a time machine and go back a LOOOOOONG time. Or something bigger; bigger than the differences between any governmental types around today. I think a huge disaster would have to come about that wiped out large populations of the human race, OR the technonlogical ability that allows us to colonize new planets and basically start life over again on other worlds. Or something equally as huge.

 

three words:
community supported agriculture.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/

 

food isn't free because there is a place for people to make money, if there were an offer out to kill your grandmother for 10billion dollars someone on earth would do it.....

people suck....

 

Sera Michele and Kitty Fabulous - you both sound like fantastically cool people, why haven't I bumped into you before?

SM (interesting initials:H ), you may have noticed I said I'm a communist in an off-hand and non-commital way. I agree with the philosophy - as summed up by 'to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities'. But I don't, for example, think a bloody revolution is necessary. The practice of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat has clearly led simply to another dictatorship which clearly hasn't functioned - I follow a whole other plan to the communist goal of a classless society, or anarchy (which sounds horrible, especially since Sid Viscious rhymed anarchist with anti-christ).

Kitty, absolutely. Them on top are leaving themselves wide open with this one. When I get to New Zealand I'm gonna convince my Uncle (who owns a sheep farm) to give all his produce away in exchange for being known as the man who provided this meal and that woolly jumper and the lanolin skin cream, and if people wanna come over (if they don't mind living in tents and lending a hand with their houses being built) they can. Then we'll build an army and conquer the world :& .
I'm gonna go check out that link.

 

Hmm. I always find that the longer a definition gets, the less clear it is... So you have to pay to work on a farm. See, I don't get that. Are they saying a member can't produce more than co consumes? Because if co can, then why should co pay to be there? It's just the bit where they say a member should work for a portion of cos membership fees.

Community Supported Agriculture. I saw the words and thought "well if the community is supporting the agriculture, surely they're reaping the rewards ie getting their food for free (or for the little work it takes compared to the amount produced)", but it seems they're not.

It's a mutual support though isn't it. Agriculture supports the Community supports Agriculture. Although, yeah, I can definitely see the need to try and get people involved in agriculture, rather than just paying for it. Many hands make light work and all that.

 

Do you actually KNOW any large scale farmers? My father is a farmer. He and his brother fallow, seed, spray, fertilize, swath and harvest over 3600 acres of land each year. To do this, they must keep 3 large combines, 4 tractors, 2 sprayers, 7 swather heads and 2 grain trucks in running order. Not to mention their normal farm trucks, 4-wheel bikes for us kids to bring parts out to the fields on, a farm yard itself (with outhouse, garage, silos, bins, hangers and random machines like Cat tractors and front end loaders)

There are 365 days in a year. Since there are 2 brothers doing all the farming, there are 730 days. (2 x 365 = 730)

Lets say, for arguments sake, that it takes 40 of these days to seed and till the land. Then it takes 40 more of these days to fertilize the land. Add another 30 days to spray the land. There is a growing time of 140 days, during which fall harvest equiptment is checked, fixed, gases, oiled, and towed/driven to proper areas. Also, new bins are built to store incoming grain, new types of grain and as holding tanks for processing grain. 250 days already gone!

Then comes the actual harvest. For this, they need help... so they hire someone (I had done it in the past) to drive the Combine for them... basically, they do this because they like to sleep for 4 hours each night and bringing someone else it to help gives them the time to do that. I would also like to add that during harvest season, my father gets up at 5am.. and gets home sometime after midnight. Meals are brought out to him, and he eats while driving, or fixing or hauling whatever it is he is working on. Lets say harvest takes, not counting the helper's days of work but am couting the fact that they are working 19 hour days, 180 days from start (in early august with the winter wheat to sometimes the middle of October if the weather holds). Add another 10 days to that for emergency repairs to the equiptment. Another 190 days! (250 + 190 = 440 days already spent total!)

Now comes the cleaning, drying, grading, hauling and shipping time. Lets give this another 120 days. Oh! But they also need to order some rail cars in to haul some grain to Alberta.... add another 30 days for that, because the rail cars only come to a "city" an hour away.. so that means loading, hauling, gasing, driving, unloading, driving, gasing, loading, hauling, unloading, driving, gasing.. and so on. 150 days added to our total! (150 + 440 = 590 days)

Lets add some time in the equation for muddy fields (40 days), rainy weather (35 days), freak hail storms (10 days), early snow (15 days), and drying time (15 days). During this time, the Brothers are nervous that they won't get the crop off in time, or that the insurance that they took out isn't enough to cover the hail damage... or did they even spend that $3000 on hail insurance this year? Oh oh.... they also spend a lot of time talking to insurance agents, banks, and equiptment dealers keeping their farm affairs in order. So lets say that they use the "weather time" to do this kind of stuff, as well as worry that they are going to "lose the farm" this year. Another 115 days just here! (115 + 590 = 705 days gone!)

Lets give the Brothers 5 sick days each... so 10 sick days total. Injury days? Last year my dad got some sparks of metal in his eye, so he didn't work for 3 days while his cornea healed. My uncle ripped off his finger too, and was in the hospital for a week having it re-attached... so that is another 10 days total. Thats 20 more days when they just can't work do to physical ailments!

Weekends? say the Brothers each take 3 weekends off a year... that's 12 days. Oh, and say they took their families on a vacation in January for 2 weeks.... so that is another 28 days.

How many days is all of this? Grand total of 770 days... or 385 days each. 20 more days than what actually exist in a year.... guess they don't get to take that vacation after all.

Wow... what an easy job, eh? Sounds totally effortless. Much easier than a desk job where you get weekends off, a lunch hour, breaks, and at least a week off at Christmas.

 

Food isn't free cause most of us pay for other people to grow, process, ship and distribute the food for us, since most of us dont have time to be a full time farmer.

 

iced tea, I didn't read your post but guess it could be summed up as "it's hard to be a farmer". Which I agree with, but how many people are fed by your father's farm? Hundreds? More? Compare that with how many people currently work on the farm and I think you'll agree that if everyone who is fed by the farm mucked in occasionally there wouldn't be too much work for each of them.

I've just gone back and read your post and decided farmers need unions, but my point stands.

*edit*On another note, maybe you can teach me about US agricultural policies. In the UK, farmers get paid by tax-payers for the amount of land they own but don't farm, ie how much of their land they leave bare, cropless. Could your dad do that with some of his land if he wanted? I think the reason for it is that in spending money persuading farmers not to produce food here, they can make much more money imposing import duties on foreign produce, especially as domestic prices are pushed up by the lower supply.*edit*

 

If everyone who was fed by my family's farm came to help on the farm there would be no farm because all the land would be full of houses for the people who came to help the farm. It's a bit of a paradox. Saskatchewan grows over half of the wheat consumed by the world.... so if half of the worlds population came to help, well... there would be no land left to farm.

Also, there are only so much equipment... and a combine can run you up to a million bucks. Do you know a lot of people who know how to change the concaves on a swather from corn to wheat? Or do you know people who even know what corn concaves are? Having random people or "eaters" show up would be a shit-show, pardon the french. If my father and uncle hurt themselves, well imagine what would happen to an ordinary "eater"? They would be killed or at least seriously hurt within a week, i bet. My dad is 57, and he started farming full time when he was 15... so that is a lot of experiance, and he still has accidents!

Its like, if everyone who needed heart surgery would just do another person's surgury we wouldn't need heart surgeons. Farming takes skill, and thought, and dedication... you just can't drive up to a farm and expect to climb on up into a swather or baler without messing up big time.

It's a great idea though, i give you that!

My dad does so some bartering and trading with other farmers in the area. He lets a beekeeper have hives on his land, and in return, gets honey and beeswax. He trades feed-grade grain to a local rancher, and gets beef in return. But, you can't barter for everything!

p.s. they have unions... UGG (united grain growers) and the Wheat Pool. Unions help regulate grain prices and government assistance for the lean years when the crops fail. Without the existing unions, my father's job would be even harder... as who do you think they call to send the rail cars? Or where do you think they haul the grain to?

 

*Note the edit on my last post^*
Yeah, I mean obviously half the world can't turn up on your doorstep - that would be ridiculous But what about a happy medium? Just a few extra beds with people coming in for short amounts of time, whilst on holiday from their easy but soul destroying desk job maybe; one leaves, another arrives. Farming is, as you say, an intricate proffesion, lots to learn, but if it was like a regular thing for people they would learn, and there must be some unskilled labour to be done on a farm. Also, you could specifically invite people with useful peripheral skills - from chefs to skilled mechanics (for the combies) - thereby reducing costs, and improving all your lives. By your numbers up there, with only twice as many workers you'd have almost half your time to spare.

 

in re to your edit: I don't know much about the US farm system. I am from Canada, just living in the US for a while.

Saskatchewan is the large rectanglular province in the middle. It's a huge province, but had a population of just under a million at the last census. Pretty much the entire Sask. economy is centered around farming. Even if you aren't a farmer yourself, your customers or parents or friends are. Even the most far removed from farming job is related or somewhat dependant on farming.

There is no "don't farm your land" system in Canada. If they didn't farm their land, then there wouldn't be as much grain... and you would go hungry because the UK couldn't import the stuff we grew. haha. My dad grew the wheat that was ground to make the flour and then imported to the UK and made into the bread you had for breakfast.

As I said before, your idea is lovely. But, it wouldn't work in Saskatchewan. The population is too small to allow for it. Plus, because the province is so large, for a "worker" to come up to the farm for the weekend from say, the capital city of Regina, he would spend 6 hours just driving from the city to the farm! That's 600 km of driving, just one way. By the numbers, if he worked 8 hours, and spent 12 hours driving to and from the farm... well... there goes the weekend. It's not practical... plus it would consume a lot of fossil fuels! It would also cause taxes to raise to help with the increased road traffic (all those people commuting to help the various farms would do a number on the roads!)

There really isn't a lot of unskilled labour on the farm that isn't already being done. Pretty much the only thing would be meals, but that is what my Grandmother does to feel "helpful"... and the kids do a lot of stuff to, as I said. It really is a "family farm" in a lot of ways. Pretty much everything being done involves some machinery or special tool or skill set.

In an ideal world, with an ideal system... your idea would be wonderful. Unfortuanetly, there are cities, full of people with no agricultural know-how, and no desire to attain some. They don't know how to garden, let alone farm. So, my dad picks up their slack. If we all lived on farms or small towns, we could all grow our own food. Unless something radical happens to decrease the food demand from the world outside Saskatchewan, well... the system that exists is the one that will stay in place. We can't expect people in India to help on our farm, or to grow all their own food... they don't have the land.

 

I'm working on it Ice T. Spreading people out from the cities is one thing I think this website idea will help with. Did I tell you about the website idea?

 

Well, since you asked, it's just a skills exchange website, but with a map where users are displayed. You can do searches by skill or by goods (wanted or offered) and these come up on the map. You can then click on a user to access all their other information - other skills or goods they want or offer. It's hard to explain when I'm not looking at a person cos I don't know whether you're getting it or not but it's a very simple idea. It's been done several times for a local area, a village or whatever, but all it would need to make it useful on a global scale, in my opinion, is the map.

Think google maps for people instead of businesses, or people as well as businesses.

With the technologies we now possess, including large scale farming, I don't believe the bean-counter mentality of capitalism is necessary anymore. The world is just so rich! It's like Vasquez says in Aliens "I only need to know one thing... where [the things I need to do] are".

 

I think Iced T is missing the point, much like I was. Andy's thread here is not so about the cost of food production, but about the government's insistance on grabbing a profit from that cost.

Subsidies is a word that can mean many different things, and I believe his government has picked up on that. It's not that anyone is complaining about the cost of food, but rather the cost of keeping farmers in business. If you're not making money at what you're doing, it's hard to qualify doing it - believe me, I'm in the consumer electronics repair business.

I see what Andy is bent about now, he's paying for something that isn't even being tried to be grown. And it would be cheaper if we all pitched in and helped grow ourselves. But not entirely practical, as Iced T points out.

I wish I had an answer, then I could be rich. Problem is, no one wants to spend their life unproductively. Everyone wants that extra few bucks to be able to blow when they feel like it. And if a few consumers who couldn't do any better without them have to pay for that, well, that's life. Until the majority of people are willing to make the sacrifice of having to help others, I'm afraid we'll all just have to live with it.

By helping others I don't mean 400 city-dwellers would have to commute all the way to the farm. Maybe some could help build and maintain a store in their neighborhood. Others could pack some produce in their trunk and drop it off on their way to their chosen work. At the sites they pick up from others could help process the raw goods, etc.

Yes it could be done, but it would take a lot of restructuring. I read elsewhere anarchy may be born from the fall of capitalism. Maybe so, but people are going to have to have something to make their thinking change literally overnight for that to happen. I'm afraid somewhere we started off on the wrong foot, and it may take more than the 'fall' of one of our social structures to get humanity where it really needs to be. On the other hand it's entirely possible a well-intentioned web site or something similar will be all it will take.