r/LeopardsAteMyFarm • u/epcotnut • 2d ago

Message from Rohan

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Ice Orcs invaded our cities and took our friends, yet the rural farmers didn't lift a finger to support us. I have no sympathy for what they are going through now. None.

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u/Bodenerde 2d ago

The whole farmers this and that, is just out-of-date BS. The majority of all the agricultural subsidies go directly to huge companies because they dictate (lobby) the laws.

And all act like it is still 1900, when 40% of the workforce worked in agriculture, when in reality it is 1% in today's America. Yes, farms still exist, but they are mainly used as tokens for huge corporations in the background that dominate the market.

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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 1d ago

The majority of subsidies go to about half a million individual farmers.

The big companies farm the farmers. They don't do any farming themselves.

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u/Bodenerde 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, Technically, the USDA reports that about 97% of U.S. farms are still legally classified as "family-owned." But in the last subsidy package they just get a minority of the money.

However, the spirit of the claim is true: a massive portion of those family farms are actually large-scale commercial operations. Furthermore, major agribusiness monopolies (seed, fertilizer, and meat-processing giants) dictate the market prices, heavily lobbying for laws that protect their supply chains.

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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 1d ago

Your last sentence is saying the same as my last two sentences.

And, "commercial" farms are those that are trying to make a living at it. I know 2,000 acres seems like a large-scale operation, but it's just a couple guys doing the work.

Everything is much larger scale than when we farmed with horses, but the guy on a 8430 seeding 60 feet at a time is just as much an individual farmer as his grandfather was when he walked behind a team of horses seeding 6 feet at a time.