To
whom this may concern,
There is a serious problem in this
country. The government has immense power to shape the economy, and it does so
in many ways, however when it comes to shaping the agricultural sector, it both
abuses and neglects its authority. Subsidies are regularly handed out to businesses
and people who either don’t need them or shouldn’t even be eligible to apply.
At the same time, many individuals and small businesses that benefit society
and the environment receive inadequate subsidies, if they receive any at all. I
have a proposed solution that would improve the system and help support small
businesses. This all relies on law makers making decisions based on morally
correct motives and a desire to help people and preserve the environment, therefore
I expect nothing that I will discuss to ever actually happen, however I feel
that my ideas have at least enough value to be considered.
I propose that all current subsidies
be cut entirely and replaced with an entirely new system. To start I believe
that all new subsidies should be inversely proportional to the size of the business
receiving the said subsidy. The benefits of this are twofold. One benefit is
that it promotes local small-scale businesses which must compete against large
scale corporations who do not have the same risk and variability associated with
small scale agriculture. The other is that it incentives new business which inherently
start at the smaller scale. A modifier should then be applied to this subsidy
based on the efficiency and environmental impact of the recipient. This would
be applied in a layered approach. First an increase would be applied proportional
to the density of the yield, i.e. the yield per area of land. Next deductions
would be made based on environment impacts made by the business. These impacts
would consist of things such as water consumption, soil depletion, chemical pollution,
etc. Most importantly, though, would be a carbon footprint reduction based on
the total emissions from farm to consumer, meaning that deductions would be
applied for transportation, therefore promoting local agriculture and reducing
carbon pollution.
Systems like this inherently have
their flaws however, so various modifications would have to be made. To start
with, there would have to be a change in the carbon emission deduction for food
being transported to areas that are ill-suited for local agriculture, or seasonally
in places where local agriculture is only viable for part of the year. All
subsidies would have to change based the crop as well, seeing as every crop has
its own unique requirement to grow. All this being said, if this system were
adopted, there would be an increase in locally grown food, a drop in the prices
of produce, and both an increase in crop yield and a decrease in the
environmental impact of agriculture. It is not about making big drastic changes
in regulation or having radical views on environmentalism, it is about making
the path toward sustainability and affordability the path that will be the most
profitable for the producers. This way everyone ones, from the environment, to
the impoverished, and even the businesses, but of course not the people in
power who are currently milking the system for all it is worth. So, like I said,
this will never happen, because it makes to much sense, and therefore isn’t
profitable for the only people who could make it happen, but at least we are
able to at least discuss an option that most people agree is better than what we
have right now.
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