# How many people would die... - Organic family farming **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2006, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038 "2006-10-19T02:27:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038/21 "2006-10-19T20:13:16Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] It’s important to remember that people don’t drink Pepsi (for instance) because they like Pepsi. They drink Pepsi because the feds have decided that Pepsi should be cheap while carrot juice (for instance) should be expensive. [/QUOTE] Oddly enough, I drank Mt. Dew because I liked Mt. Dew, and comparitively, I feel Carrot Juice is crap. While I found most of your post very informative, i find this line questionable. It’s not like the Fed Gov’t is some monolithic machine that can dictate what people find palatable. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2006, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038/22 "2006-10-19T21:03:34Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] It’s important to remember that people don’t drink Pepsi (for instance) because they like Pepsi. They drink Pepsi because the feds have decided that Pepsi should be cheap while carrot juice (for instance) should be expensive. Oddly enough, many people who claim to support free markets turn a blind eye to the massive subsidies for agribusiness and the subsequent effects on people’s diets. [/QUOTE] Nonsense. If you sold carrot juice at the same price as Pepsi, you’d still sell very little. People don’t drink soda because its _cheap_. They drink it because it’s full of _sugar_, and our instinctual metabolic response to suger is “Gimme!” ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2006, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038/23 "2006-10-19T21:24:59Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] It’s important to remember that people don’t drink Pepsi (for instance) because they like Pepsi. They drink Pepsi because the feds have decided that Pepsi should be cheap while carrot juice (for instance) should be expensive. [/QUOTE] _I_ like Pepsi. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2006, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038/24 "2006-10-19T21:37:22Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] One effect on this is the spread of unhealthy food. The best example is high-fructose corn syrup. It is very cheap–almost free–thanks to federal subsidies. Consequently the ag corporations can flood the market with cheap sodas, candy, processed desserts, and other unhealthy crap. This leads to obesity and many early deaths. Similarly, subsidies drive down the cost of unhealthy processed meat and cheese products. [/quote] I think you are painting with too broad of a brush. Sure, some unhealthy products are cheaper because of subsidies, but tariffs and price supports also drive up prices. Sugar for instance, costs much more than it would if there were no price supports. And while corn syrup is cheaper because of subsidies, so is corn, which is quite healthy. A lot of other fruit (apples, for instance) is subsidized. I don’t think you can accurately say that subsidies and other federal farm policies only drive up the prices of healthy foods and drive down the prices of unhealthy foods. It’s a mixed bag. > [@](#): > > It’s important to remember that people don’t drink Pepsi (for instance) because they like Pepsi. They drink Pepsi because the feds have decided that Pepsi should be cheap while carrot juice (for instance) should be expensive. Not quite. Water is still free in most places and yet people choose to pay to drink flavored drinks. People like how pop (soda, whatever you want to call it) tastes. > [@](#): > > Oddly enough, many people who claim to support free markets turn a blind eye to the massive subsidies for agribusiness and the subsequent effects on people’s diets. Oh, many do? Well, many don’t. Sure, politicians from liberal to conservative support the current farm policies because it delivers buckets of money to farmers. No politician is going to support any policy that could be spun as hurting the farmers. Outside of politicians, there is a pretty widespread hatred of farm subsidies in the free market community. You won’t find one free market think tank or other free marketeer who supports them. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038/25 "2006-10-19T22:19:21Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I’ve never understood the sentimental attitude people have towards agriculture, compared to other industires. Nobody’s suggesting we shut down the steel mills and go back to the days of the village blacksmith, are they? No, but then, if your access to the products of the steel mills happens to be cut off for a few days or weeks, you probably won’t starve to death. I don’t advocate returning all (or even most) agriculture to the “mom and pop” format, but there are some good arguments to be made for encouraging decentralized, regional/community-level agriculture. Producing food is probably **the** most indispensable and crucial of all human activities, and having a lot of diversity and redundancy built into it is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038/26 "2006-10-20T09:42:21Z")
In the UK there is a large chain of stores called Iceland - it is pretty down market - they sell mainly frozen food - and some other basic foods They were started by a guy called Malcolm Walker, literally from nothing and grew both internally and by acquisition. For some reason they merged with another large UK company called Bookers. About five years ago Malcolm Walker went a bit nuts, he decided that pesticides were horrible - especially those used on carrots. Iceland started stocking organic frozen vegetables, also banned GM from their own products. Interestingly, I could notice little significant price difference between the organic and normal produce. Iceland had a palace coup (the bunch from Bookers wanted Walker out), he left and they tried to get him for insider trading, which he did do, he knew that kicking him out would drop the share price, which it did, so he sold his shares. Fortunately that sort of insider trading is apparently legal. The organic range totally disappeared, and a few years later an (ironically) Icelandic company bought the chain and re-installed Walker. Curiously the organic range has not reappeared and he is keeping a low profile. The jist is that they were sourcing large quantities of organic vegetables, and they were not significantly more expensive. Probably because farmers actually get paid b/gger all percentage of the retail price by the supermarkets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-people-would-die-organic-family-farming/377038.md?page=1)