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Enough dairy subsidies! Plant milk is better for us and the planet. So why do we keep subsidizing dairy? | Mother Jones (www.motherjones.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/vegan@slrpnk.net
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[–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

But... but why would I care? They had enough chances (and still have) to leave the sinking ship.

People don't give a flying fuck about hotels, restaurants, local retailers, taxi companies and what not, but the second it's the "poor farmers" it's suddenly a huge moral issue.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Often dairy farming is a family business, and so you're born into it. These systems of subsidies are quite old, and so you have a lot of momentum. The debt, assets and revenues all pass over from generation to generation. It is hard to leave, and many do, mind you, through suicide.

    https://www.suicideinfo.ca/local_resource/agriculture-and-suicide/

    In democracies, farmers are a solid conservative block of support. Any discussion of removing their entitlements will unleash a wrath that the government can easily pay to avoid. I agree that large scale dairy is a problem, but I don't think government is going to help fix this by removing entitlements, rather by subsidizing the alternatives, and by offering bail outs to any dairy farmer who is willing to reforest their pasture, and sell that land back for conservation.

    This problem, in particular, is very expensive to fix.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    The same statement can be made about hotels, restaurants, taxi companies, local retailers. You are also usually born into it. Your parents run a pub and you take it over. Yet "Yay Airbnb!".

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