[LatteLazy]

I won't defend the mess of current rules. But let's not pretend here either: the reason agriculture has to be run more centrally is because farmers are actually amazingly bad at farming. There are entire offices filled with people who's job is to try and convince farmers to do things that work. From new crops to new technology to when to plant to climate change, farmers just refuse to budge. One of the longest UK radio programs is dedicated to getting farmers to farm better. We have a special program that pays farmers to retire, because it's cheaper than dealing with how bad they are at their jobs (imagine that in any other sector...).

That's the issue here.

We could solve it the way you say, but then we'd need an actual market, and when supplies ran low to import and to accept many farmers going bankrupt and their land being sold off to farmers who do do it right. That's been politically verboten for at least 50 years.

[P5fRxh5kUvp2th]

This feels akin to architects armed with diagrams telling the developers who have been working on the system for 5+ years why they're wrong.

Maybe it's true, but how likely is it?

It's more likely the farmers have concerns that are not being addressed. I can easily see "You should do this because it will make more crops and we don't care about your increased financial burden from it".

[dredmorbius]

Agricultural decisionmaking is ... distributed weirdly in many contexts.

First, in many cases, the local operators (who are often not owners) are not especially autonomous, and may be acting on behalf of corporate concerns or decisions made far away, not infrequently in entirely different countries. To that extent, governmental regulation is a countervailing force to corporate power.

Secondly, ag, food production generally (e.g., fishing and grazing), and forestry are classic cases of the somewhat maligned "tragedy of the commons" situation. Localised decisionmaking absolutely can and has resulted in long-term and permanent degradation of ecosystems and populations. This includes the deforestation of the Mediterranean basin as well as much of Europe, old-growth forests within the US, much of the Amazon jungle, and tropical woodlands throughout the world. (That some of this has occurred due to or subject to government planning doesn't negate the fact that much of the interest is corporate and commercial.) Even local small-scale decisionmaking can be exceptionally detrimental. Collapses of fisheries such as sardines off Monterey, California, cod off the Grand Banks, and elsewhere, commercial whaling, overgrazing throughout much of the world, and decimation of wild animal populations including the North American bison and passenger pigeon.

Third, ag production is governed by a huge array of factors ranging from local soil quality and conservation (see the recent HN article on topsoil loss within the American Midwest), seasonal weather forecasts, and international trade policies, tarrifs, credits, and the like.

In all, there are strong arguments against strictly local decisionmaking, no matter how unpopular that fact may be locally.

In practice within the US, the Department of Agriculture is among the most distributed federal departments, with both a strong presence in the District of Columbia and numerous field, research, and teaching operations throughout the country. "Distant federal oversight" is a poor description of the actual situation.

[P5fRxh5kUvp2th]

I was just pointing out that it's not likely the people doing the actual work don't understand the actual work.

What you're describing is different priorities, which I completely understand. But if those changes are forcing farmers to take on more of a financial responsibility (as an example), then maybe the ones making those decisions should be more willing to consider that in their decision making.

It's not a matter of these farmers not understand, but that they don't agree.

It's like security people telling developers they're not allowed to execute powershell scripts on their local machine. It's easy for them to make that decision because they don't deal with the pain of it.

[dredmorbius]

And I'm arguing that government ag and resource departments are not as ignorant as you seem to believe.

[P5fRxh5kUvp2th]

I was responding to a poster, I made no mention of the ignorance (or lack thereof) for ag departments.

> the reason agriculture has to be run more centrally is because farmers are actually amazingly bad at farming. There are entire offices filled with people who's job is to try and convince farmers to do things that work. From new crops to new technology to when to plant to climate change, farmers just refuse to budge.

[LatteLazy]

The question in this case is who is right? If the science is in, and you'll get a better crop/profit/outcome by doing X, it doesn't matter that your grandfathers grandfather has been doing it a different way since 1066. And that's basically what this comes down to.

If farming were a market and farmers were self reliant like other businesses it would be none of my business how they ran things (within the usual bounds of not eating babies etc). But it's not, farmers get the majority of their income from government subsidies. So they're free to fuck up actually farming because they get those either way. In that environment, you need someone to actually be responsible for output who is motivated to care.

[P5fRxh5kUvp2th]

> The question in this case is who is right? If the science is in, and you'll get a better crop/profit/outcome by doing X, it doesn't matter that your grandfathers grandfather has been doing it a different way since 1066. And that's basically what this comes down to.

absolutely not what I said, if you want me to engage you seriously please read back over and avoid the strawman.

[LatteLazy]

To be clear, I am not straw manning your argument here. I am just asking: who is the expert?

You have assumed it's the farmer. But he just inherited (or rents) some land. And since the majority of his income comes from subsidies, there is no reason to assume he is competent.

On the other hand you have actual experts with real field trial results.

That's my point here.

[P5fRxh5kUvp2th]

I get to decide if you're straw manning my point (you are).

These subsidies were created to affect the behavior of farmers and now there's bitching that farmers want to keep the behavior that most benefits them and people are doing it by trying to argue these farmers are just bad for doing exactly what people initially wanted them to do.

If you think farmers are using the same techniques they were back in 1066 then perhaps you're strawmanning more than just me.

[Floegipoky]

> farmers are actually amazingly bad at farming

Remember that each farm is a complex system, often managed over multiple human lifetimes. Consider that farmers may have management goals beyond producing the optimal-on-paper calories/hectare this year, or whatever other arbitrary definition of "good" is chosen.