Getting big is not beautiful! It is a method of dominating a market segment and maximizing profitability at the expense of the buyer. Eliminating competition that improves the welfare of the citizens does not happen when monopolies exist. Examples abound in the US economy.
I only read the first two paragraphs to see the Native Peoples, put on reservations and fed government food subsidies. What used to be an athletic, tuned to nature peoples became an alcoholic, obese, beaten people. Gradually they are regaining their climb back, but in the meantime the trust of gov., especially now, is justifiably low. And then, of course, they have their own problems with tribal corruption. (Back to the essay.)
It's not just our Government. We have Gates in Africa changing their cultivation practices to match ours. Now, having lost their nutritionally better practices, they are having problems with starvation.
Yes, knowledge is power. But shared knowledge is even more power. If each one will teach one (or more), eventually that knowledge will spread and perhaps even turn the California tides. We can California Dream, anyway!
The nature of American rulers (absurdly called “public servants”) has been as it is for too many generations: the needed policy and regulatory changes, sadly will only come about - to quote Charlton Heston - when power is wrenched from “cold dead hands” of elites who FIRST have been serving themselves. They will never relinquish one iota of their illegitimate, often absurd, non-consensual power. Agriculture is but one example of why this society is crumbling under the weight of bureaucracy.
Are there any out there ready and able to do the wrenching? Is the US of A now too Big to care? Complacency doth clothe, mock and slowly drain us... aren't we just 'fine' as we are? (read in sarcasm).
Well, there is something to find hope in today from the Coffee and Covid Substack.
"In news of the weird and unexpected, yesterday Al Jazeera reported, “‘Send them back’ chants in EU Parliament after anti-migrant bill passes.” The ministers were literally hugging each other."
One of my friends from college has drifted to the left, politically. She calls democommy politicians "public servants". We've only remained friends by avoiding politics.
We see capital consumption in so many areas: soil depletion on the agricultural side, debt increase on the public and private market side, and the bonfire of cultural capital in blue cities and states.
Thank you for this valuable discussion. Surely transitioning from where we are to better outcomes demands informed decisions. Imo, some of our early transitioning is already passing unnoticed. Some consumer highly processed products are disappearing. Some fast food businesses are failing or undertaking substantial changes.
Imo one does need to reflect on what local production can achieve. We have seasons that delimit what local farms can produce. No tomatoes in December in No. Dakota. We import foods from Mexico, Canada to supplement our production. It seems to me we likely (in our planning for transition) need to recognize 'local' has to extend beyond our own local, particularly as applies to produce.
Another concern we may need to incorporate in our planning are crises. Supply line disruptions and failures. EMP. Attacks and sabotage. Floods. Droughts. Fires. Disease and insects. Building in resilience. Local capacities could save the day.
Your points here are well taken and needed to guide direction. Thank you for offering them. One hopes your insights will reach those forming policies and influencing directions. There is a lot on the line to achieving good outcomes.
Dr. Malone, I appreciate your very useful description of the problem of modern agro-business and its consequences on human health. However there are big problems in couching the solution in Austrian School economics. The Austrian School of von Mises, Hayek, Milton Friedman, etc. is based on a materialist, oligarchic view of man as a beast, not as man created in the image of the Creator. British-inspired academia over the past 125 years has promoted the false dichotomy that one has to choose between either free market libertarianism (Austrian School) or liberal Keynesianism or socialism. In reality, the United States was built as an economic power on the basis of a third approach, going back to Alexander Hamilton, known as the American System. Today this is explicitly embraced by President Trump and members of his cabinet like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, among others. I highly recommend reading the in-depth report on the Austrian School by historian Robert Ingraham linked here. Among other things, it discusses the curious close relationship between Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes. https://www.prometheanaction.com/the-british-fraud-behind-austrian-economics-how-hayek-von-mises-betrayed-americas-economic-revolution/
Yours is a Valuable opinion. Worth reading, I believe, although the definition of the American System appears to lean away from agriculture - "His economic policies emphasized the importance of a diversified economy, including agriculture, but focused more on manufacturing and infrastructure development."
I have been involved in production agriculture my whole life. I have a PhD in Ruminant Nutrition and have balanced rations for beef and primarily dairy cattle. I’ve average herd size of dairies I formulated and consult for was 2000 cows. BIG IS NOT ALWAYS BAD. some of the most unsanitary operations I have been on were small. They lacked the ability to provide cow health and comfort.
"An Austrian-school economist has no quarrel with bigness as such. Scale that emerges from voluntary exchange and survives the test of profit and loss is simply efficiency made visible, and there is nothing to object to in it."
Here is where I want to Underline what's being said:
"The objection is narrower and more serious: not bigness, but bigness manufactured by subsidy and sustained by distorted prices. In that environment, neither managers, investors, nor policymakers can reliably distinguish genuine productivity from political favoritism, because the market's measuring stick has been bent."
I agree in principle but some subsidies are justified to prevent the extinction of an entire crop. To say just let the lowest price prevail doesn’t work globally when there not a true free market. With respect to corn and soybeans specifically I think the subsidies should end. No need to support ethanol. But you never met a farmer than didn’t like a handout from the USDA. Why do you think the bills of there caps are curved inward. It’s from look in the mail box for the government check.
A couple of thoughts. Agriculture is not the only place consolidation has and is taking place. It is everywhere. Here in central Oklahoma the consolidation in oil and gas proceeds at such a fast pace you cannot keep up with a company’s name. I am not quite sure how you separate agriculture from all the rest of society and propose to stop or limit consolidation. I think an awful lot of farm/ranch folks are very weary of million dollar combines and half million dollar tractors and farmland price so it can never be paid for by agriculture activity. We do, however, love our profession. The question is how to make meaningful change. I believe many would welcome it. We have been working on such change on our operation for several years now. We have not found the changes to be easy or even profitable in spite of all the encouragement from the regenerative movement. This whole idea is quite complex and will require much more support than is currently available, I believe. If the nation wants healthy food they will have to participate in developing a system to grow it. Still, we soldier on.
These essays are so informative. I remember Crisco, vegetable shortening. Butter was bad! We have been avoiding the seed oils most recently, but high fructose corn syrup products and the trates and trites for some time. A fella; who I didn’t particularly respect, did say, the closer to the dirt the better the food. We can always learn from each other.
Bravo Dr. Malone!!! Please, keep it coming. This is the most important conversation Americans should be thinking of and talking about as it sits at the very crux of our decline and the decline of our environment (aside from the electromagnetic weapons program creating heat domes and crazy weather that make agriculture tough). Thank you for this timely deep dive. Pure MAHA ammo, which is direly needed.
Sounds like a Catch -22, That we are stuck in - Until death and dying open some eyes! and we break the cycle of cheap food, for poor health, and ECO destruction, and big pharma Meds !
Will I ever trust the federal government again to do what's in the best interests of Americans and American ag? Yeah, when Pigovians fly.
That trust was gone (for me) during covid.
Getting big is not beautiful! It is a method of dominating a market segment and maximizing profitability at the expense of the buyer. Eliminating competition that improves the welfare of the citizens does not happen when monopolies exist. Examples abound in the US economy.
I only read the first two paragraphs to see the Native Peoples, put on reservations and fed government food subsidies. What used to be an athletic, tuned to nature peoples became an alcoholic, obese, beaten people. Gradually they are regaining their climb back, but in the meantime the trust of gov., especially now, is justifiably low. And then, of course, they have their own problems with tribal corruption. (Back to the essay.)
It's not just our Government. We have Gates in Africa changing their cultivation practices to match ours. Now, having lost their nutritionally better practices, they are having problems with starvation.
I normally would not read this kind of article because I have no power to change anything in farming - especially here in crazy California.
But I did read it and it was very clear and my understanding of the whole twisted system is much more complete now. Knowledge is power, right?
Yes, knowledge is power. But shared knowledge is even more power. If each one will teach one (or more), eventually that knowledge will spread and perhaps even turn the California tides. We can California Dream, anyway!
Yes, and this article could well be expanded into a book.
You probably don't want to get big, but you can always get out!
The nature of American rulers (absurdly called “public servants”) has been as it is for too many generations: the needed policy and regulatory changes, sadly will only come about - to quote Charlton Heston - when power is wrenched from “cold dead hands” of elites who FIRST have been serving themselves. They will never relinquish one iota of their illegitimate, often absurd, non-consensual power. Agriculture is but one example of why this society is crumbling under the weight of bureaucracy.
Are there any out there ready and able to do the wrenching? Is the US of A now too Big to care? Complacency doth clothe, mock and slowly drain us... aren't we just 'fine' as we are? (read in sarcasm).
We're too big, now, NOT to care.
I'm with you, Sonia. How do we convince the 'others'?
That's the question.
Well, there is something to find hope in today from the Coffee and Covid Substack.
"In news of the weird and unexpected, yesterday Al Jazeera reported, “‘Send them back’ chants in EU Parliament after anti-migrant bill passes.” The ministers were literally hugging each other."
Steps toward progress world wide. I'm thrilled!
So am I!
One of my friends from college has drifted to the left, politically. She calls democommy politicians "public servants". We've only remained friends by avoiding politics.
We see capital consumption in so many areas: soil depletion on the agricultural side, debt increase on the public and private market side, and the bonfire of cultural capital in blue cities and states.
Thank you for this valuable discussion. Surely transitioning from where we are to better outcomes demands informed decisions. Imo, some of our early transitioning is already passing unnoticed. Some consumer highly processed products are disappearing. Some fast food businesses are failing or undertaking substantial changes.
Imo one does need to reflect on what local production can achieve. We have seasons that delimit what local farms can produce. No tomatoes in December in No. Dakota. We import foods from Mexico, Canada to supplement our production. It seems to me we likely (in our planning for transition) need to recognize 'local' has to extend beyond our own local, particularly as applies to produce.
Another concern we may need to incorporate in our planning are crises. Supply line disruptions and failures. EMP. Attacks and sabotage. Floods. Droughts. Fires. Disease and insects. Building in resilience. Local capacities could save the day.
Your points here are well taken and needed to guide direction. Thank you for offering them. One hopes your insights will reach those forming policies and influencing directions. There is a lot on the line to achieving good outcomes.
For winter tomatoes, don't forget about greenhouses (even mini ones), high tunnels, and hoop houses. And canning!
I was thinking about commercial-grocery level, school lunch types of production. For personal or neighborly sharing you're definitely on the money.
You're seeing the big picture. Thanks, Jean.
Dr. Malone, I appreciate your very useful description of the problem of modern agro-business and its consequences on human health. However there are big problems in couching the solution in Austrian School economics. The Austrian School of von Mises, Hayek, Milton Friedman, etc. is based on a materialist, oligarchic view of man as a beast, not as man created in the image of the Creator. British-inspired academia over the past 125 years has promoted the false dichotomy that one has to choose between either free market libertarianism (Austrian School) or liberal Keynesianism or socialism. In reality, the United States was built as an economic power on the basis of a third approach, going back to Alexander Hamilton, known as the American System. Today this is explicitly embraced by President Trump and members of his cabinet like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, among others. I highly recommend reading the in-depth report on the Austrian School by historian Robert Ingraham linked here. Among other things, it discusses the curious close relationship between Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes. https://www.prometheanaction.com/the-british-fraud-behind-austrian-economics-how-hayek-von-mises-betrayed-americas-economic-revolution/
Yours is a Valuable opinion. Worth reading, I believe, although the definition of the American System appears to lean away from agriculture - "His economic policies emphasized the importance of a diversified economy, including agriculture, but focused more on manufacturing and infrastructure development."
So maybe apples and oranges?
I have been involved in production agriculture my whole life. I have a PhD in Ruminant Nutrition and have balanced rations for beef and primarily dairy cattle. I’ve average herd size of dairies I formulated and consult for was 2000 cows. BIG IS NOT ALWAYS BAD. some of the most unsanitary operations I have been on were small. They lacked the ability to provide cow health and comfort.
A yellow highlighter point of the article:
"An Austrian-school economist has no quarrel with bigness as such. Scale that emerges from voluntary exchange and survives the test of profit and loss is simply efficiency made visible, and there is nothing to object to in it."
Here is where I want to Underline what's being said:
"The objection is narrower and more serious: not bigness, but bigness manufactured by subsidy and sustained by distorted prices. In that environment, neither managers, investors, nor policymakers can reliably distinguish genuine productivity from political favoritism, because the market's measuring stick has been bent."
True, but when competition disappears then it is a different story. Look at how Smithfield operates.
Well Smithfield is owned by China.
Yep! How stupid we are in DC!
That’s way we send the idiots there to get them away from use normal people.
I agree in principle but some subsidies are justified to prevent the extinction of an entire crop. To say just let the lowest price prevail doesn’t work globally when there not a true free market. With respect to corn and soybeans specifically I think the subsidies should end. No need to support ethanol. But you never met a farmer than didn’t like a handout from the USDA. Why do you think the bills of there caps are curved inward. It’s from look in the mail box for the government check.
Alzheimer’s also known as type three diabetes
A couple of thoughts. Agriculture is not the only place consolidation has and is taking place. It is everywhere. Here in central Oklahoma the consolidation in oil and gas proceeds at such a fast pace you cannot keep up with a company’s name. I am not quite sure how you separate agriculture from all the rest of society and propose to stop or limit consolidation. I think an awful lot of farm/ranch folks are very weary of million dollar combines and half million dollar tractors and farmland price so it can never be paid for by agriculture activity. We do, however, love our profession. The question is how to make meaningful change. I believe many would welcome it. We have been working on such change on our operation for several years now. We have not found the changes to be easy or even profitable in spite of all the encouragement from the regenerative movement. This whole idea is quite complex and will require much more support than is currently available, I believe. If the nation wants healthy food they will have to participate in developing a system to grow it. Still, we soldier on.
Excellent analysis and observation! Thank you , Robert, for your ongoing research and enlightenment!
These essays are so informative. I remember Crisco, vegetable shortening. Butter was bad! We have been avoiding the seed oils most recently, but high fructose corn syrup products and the trates and trites for some time. A fella; who I didn’t particularly respect, did say, the closer to the dirt the better the food. We can always learn from each other.
Bravo Dr. Malone!!! Please, keep it coming. This is the most important conversation Americans should be thinking of and talking about as it sits at the very crux of our decline and the decline of our environment (aside from the electromagnetic weapons program creating heat domes and crazy weather that make agriculture tough). Thank you for this timely deep dive. Pure MAHA ammo, which is direly needed.
THE TRIFECTA of DOOM - Big Gov, Big Ag, Big Med. Money, Money, Money, I got greedlove in my tummy!
My momma bird is gone, abandoned her sweet nest. I won't say which day this occurred.
Loudly crying emoji (😭) shows a face with an open mouth and heavy tears, conveying intense sorrow or overwhelming emotions.
Sounds like a Catch -22, That we are stuck in - Until death and dying open some eyes! and we break the cycle of cheap food, for poor health, and ECO destruction, and big pharma Meds !
I don't think we're stuck, because we're all waking up. MAHA!