Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by apt-get 2349 days ago
Which is why 75% of France's farmers belong to an agricultural cooperative?
2 comments

I can't speak for France specifically but if it's anything like the UK and Ireland then farming families are dis-incentivized to sell land because its costs nothing to hold, and always increases in value. As a farmer you might not even own the land you work on but rent it for the season, and large corporations don't work well with that kind of uncertainty.
Are those profitable though? Farming is heavily subsidized by the EU.
And American agriculture is likewise heavily subsidized by the federal government.
US agriculture is also heavily subsidized
Only commodity crops and those listed on Wall Street/stock exchange.

Not the food and vegetables and fruits we consume. Hogs and corn and sugar beets and canola and soy are subsidized.

Farming is heavily subsidised throughout the industrialised world.
Farming in New Zealand is not subsidized, and I believe the same is true of Australia. It's possible to compete on the open market and succeed.
NZ used to have subsidies but they got rid of it. Good for them. Fonterra is their big co-op. But with Chinese investment/ownership, most of it is going towards milk powder for export. They posted a loss for the first time last year. Canada has subsidies but different from American. They use a system called Supply Management. They make smaller family farms work better and will survive unlike American dairy. We have more CAFOs and factory farms that are not ecologically and environmentally sustainable in the long run. It’s a mess.