I had a chilling thought: why hasn't our big agriculture been outsourced yet?

[yurbud]

Admittedly big ag has it good here: giant subsidies, trade policies that make it nearly impossible for other countries to compete, patented crops and on and on.

The downside for them is even the token taxes, labor and environmental laws they have to follow are stricter than they would have to deal with in other countries: as little as illegal immigrant ag workers make, they come here because they can make more here than back home.
Likewise, while big ag can buy off our politicians here, what are the chances they could buy other Mexican, Indian, and Russian politicians for even less?

Obviously, I'm not talking about fruit and other stuff that we already get from all over the world, but wheat, corn, soy, and crops like that.

The other reason they might do it: another economic sector to short until it's dead and its bones are picked clean. And as we have seen with manufacturing, computer programming, and even the mortgage industry, it is much, much, easier to make a business or even whole economic sector fail than to make it succeed, so that is what the spoiled trust fund babies on Wall Street who have been gutting our economy to avoid having to learn how to make anything or provide any service have been doing for the last few decades.

food for thought.

[tom_paine]

1. Only because it is physically tied to the productive capacity of the land itself

If they could move it to the Third World, our American Corporatists would, but it is physically impossible.

So they are making our nation Third World, instead.

[yurbud]

9. how much is land in Third World countries?

I hope you are right. I was fishing for counter-arguments that would shoot this down.

[Vincardog]

18. The reason land in Iowa and Illinois is used is because it can grow a lot of corn and wheat. You

can't get the same yields in Bolivia.
Brazil has some land that can be improved to make serious yields possible.
I have heard rumors of China leasing giant portions of Siberia for its' agricultural potential.

[yurbud]

19. I was thinking of arable but underutilized areas like that.

[jaksavage]

2. Chinese pet food and

south american cows, Pakistani chewing gum, called Nuclear Waste, I am not kidding.

[yurbud]

8. those are all bad, but when have they stopped the financial elite?

[SPedigrees]

3. Most of our wheat does, in fact, come from China and other countries.

Those "amber waves of grain" are but a distant memory now.

[barbiegeek]

14. NO Wheat comes from CANADA

[SPedigrees]

17. Some does, but the bulk of it comes from China now, particularly wheat products like

wheat gluten that are used in bread and other products.
I did say China and other countries.

[Lance_Boyle]

4. Because the land is here and we illegally insource aliens to harvest it.

Don't worry - big Ag does not have America's best interests at heart. Only profit and illegal labor exploitation.

[Gman2]

5. Where have you been, we are buying up all the poor peoples most arable land.

It has been going on for some time. We are expanding for GCC reasons.

[yurbud]

10. GCC?

[riderinthestorm]

6. Can't change the soil. US has some of the best in the world.

It's productive capacities are incredible (even with the terrible chemicals we dump on it which is rapidly depleting it but still. It has a lot of "life" left).

While Big Ag is trying to move on other countries - outsourcing - they are limited in locating arable land that's worth it. This doesn't even get into the other logistics issues: transportation to get the product to market, the equipment to harvest and move it etc.

[SOS]

7. Beginning in 2005 the US became a net food importer

They're working on it.

[Gormy Cuss]

11. Yes, and that allowed Big Ag to make bigger profits off of crops not used for food

such as corn grown for fuel, weed suppression, and other non-food uses.

[daa]

12. Because big ag are rich republicans nt

[DefenseLawyer]

13. Most big agriculture isn't labor intensive

Corn, soybeans, cattle feedlots don't require lots of workers. Just a few guys with heavy equipment can handle a lot of acreage. Those ag businesses that are labor intensive, like fruit and vegetable growers and meat processing plants have a steady stream of foreign workers, documented and undocumented, to work cheap.

[barbiegeek]

15. Land available to Corp Farm is in Africa & Saudi's and Dhabi have corp it

What can be used for corporate farm land (what hasn't already been done in South America--which some was taken back through Nationalization of AG--Brazil Venezuela) is in Poor African Nations. Middle Eastern Sheiks in Saudi Arabia, Dhabi, and other places in Mid-East are buying up African Land, corporation it, and bringing the food back to their home countries and pay less then a dollar a day for their labor.

[area51]

16. Because it's being insourced, like nursing jobs, construction, etc;

you need to bring people here to insource in order to destroy American jobs.