[53] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Re: interesting fact...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin THEOBALD)
Thu Mar 24 02:30:48 1994
From: theobald@duke.cs.mcgill.ca (Kevin THEOBALD)
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 00:29:28 -0500
In-Reply-To: Michael L. Jacknis's message [interesting fact...] as of Mar 23, 20:47
To: Michael L. Jacknis <mjacknis@MIT.EDU>, libertarians@MIT.EDU
Cc: vsg@MIT.EDU
In your message [interesting fact...]
+------------------------------
|
| >From Diet for a New America
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|
| Cost of common hamburger meat if U.S. taxpayers did not subsidize the meat
| industry's use of water: $35
This sounds like they have an agenda, like vegetarianism, and are probably
adding up the subsidies in a worst-case sort of way. Did they itemize
these costs? It might be possible to add up subsidies in such a way as to
get $35/[mass unit unspecified] for hamburger, but this doesn't mean that
it would cost that much if the subsidies were eliminated. Producers would
modify their methods to reduce costs. For instance, many farmers get
water at ridiculously low prices due to federal subsidy programs, and they
flood-irrigate their crops, a very wasteful practice. If they had to pay
the full market value of the water they use (like cities), they would
certainly change this practice. So while it may be possible to generate
a high price for the agricultural product under the current system, the
price would actually be lower if the subsidy were actually eliminated,
because one of the assumptions (flood-irrigation) would be untrue.
In any case, Americans could buy their meat from Canada, where water
is plentiful and the price for meat is comparable to the U.S.
- Kevin
