Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 06:08:15 JST Sarah Taber

   Financial news outlets are starting to report on how USAID shutdown is BAD for US farms.

   https://www.fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202502050704RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KBN3EQ13P-OUSBS_1

   • Steve's Place, Bill and Adrianna Tan repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 06:08:15 JST Sarah Taber

     in reply to

     USAID isn't purely foreign aid. It's also a crop price support program!

     When US farmers overproduce crops (which we often do), the gov't buys up the extra & exports it as aid.

     That's USAID.

     Without USAID, we get gluts. WAY too much corn, soy, etc. Prices crash. Makes farmers sad and/or broke.

     Now check out what crop prices have been doing the last 3 years

     and tell me how you think the farm lobby is gonna feel about losing the "buy up gluts to prevent price crashes" program lmao

     Steve's Place and Bill repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 06:09:13 JST Sarah Taber

     in reply to

     Farmers are feeling the hit already.

     "Planned grain sales for Food for Progress alone in January and February totaled about 315,000 metric tons, worth $150 million, said one source familiar with the program contracts."

     That's $150M that farmers won't get paid now.

     Just from *one* USAID program being shut down.

     But wait! There's more!

     That also means 315,000 tons of grain that was gonna be exported. But now it'll stay in the US & push prices down for ALL THE REST OF THE GRAIN IN THE US.

     Paul Cantrell and Bill repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 06:42:46 JST Sarah Taber

     in reply to

     That's why the farm lobby is a HUGE fan of USAID.

     For another peek, here's a letter from the soy, dairy, sugar, and peanut lobbies, and the entire nat'l council of farm co-ops

     begging Congress to add $200M to the USAID budget.

     https://soygrowers.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ASASignsRUTF-Letter-to-Appropriators-3.21.22.pdf

     Bill and Adrianna Tan repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 07:15:20 JST Sarah Taber

     in reply to

     To be clear, I'm not writing this out of pity for the US farm lobby.

     The first thing Trump did in 2016 was axe TPP- a trade deal the US farm lobby'd worked on for years. He cost farmers billions.

     The farm lobby knew exactly what a 2nd Trump admin would be like & they said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ we'll risk it!

     There's also a lot to be said for how USAID often works more like crop dumping. It solves hunger in the short term. But in the long term, it can depress a countries' farm economy & make hunger worse.

     Bill and RamenCatholic 🐢 🌈 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sarah Taber (sarahtaber@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Feb-2025 07:15:20 JST Sarah Taber

     in reply to

     I'm just saying. Some Big Farm Policy Decisions are being made here by a guy whose pickup trucks can't even handle mud