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by hermannj314
256 days ago
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If China stops buying our soybeans, we can start planting other things. Aren't natural food dyes just a great way to encourage diversity in domestic agriculture? I am not an expert in synthetic vs. natural, but I feel like this decision isn't actually about health (I don't see any reason to believe why Wal-Mart cares at all about the health of Americans) but rather some larger macroeconomic reality. |
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> china
China imports only 21% of it's soy from america. Down from 40% 5y back.
America consistently exports only half of its soy output. The other half is all used domestically.
To be clear, almost all soy in the world is used for animal feed, not for humans to consume. My exact knowledge of poultry is limited, but I believe broiler chickens are made possible (3kg in 50 days) only because of a diet consisting of a certain kind of corn and certain kind of soy.
> We can start planting other things
American farms and the entire supply chain is pretty hardwired to corn and soy, for the same reasons punjab/haryana farms are hardwired to rice (even tho it's arid land, rice isn't even native, thus uses up groundwater too fast).
Government-set/subsidized price floors, insurance, storage programs specifically for 4 program crops, of which one was corn, and to which soy was a later addition. India has the same thing for rice etc.
Soy/corn rotation also caused extreme lock-in, since soy leaves a lot of nitrogen in the soil after harvest, and corn needs a lot of nitrogen.
There are many other factors, but essentially, the entire farm supply chain is locked in to corn/soy in most American farmland similar to how most punjab/haryana supply chain is stuck in rice/wheat alternation and resulting farmland/aquifer overuse.
In america too corn soy are not native. And the excess nitrogen goes down the rivers and causes hypoxia in the gulf of (mexico|america). Very symmetric problem.
It's extremely expensive to get them to grow anything different. For starters, removing the price floors and such is electoral suicide. Most of the farmers (that remain) depend on these things heavily. You can complete the rest...
More random stats: 40% of us corn goes to animal feed, 40% goes to ethanol (for blending with petrol among other things), and the rest is other stuff.
Even more: 70% of soy goes to animal feed, primarily broiler chicken, 15% goes to oil. Margarine, processed crap, lots of fried goods, all use this. I think you can even make plastic with it. I forgot what the other 15% was... And the people actually eating tofu, soy milk, etc are a tiny percentage and don't even register.