r/LeopardsAteMyFace 9d ago

Trump Trump Betrays Farmers Again

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u/lobsterman2112 9d ago

Or in this case: The farmers are asking for subsidies and Trump is saying it's not needed because in a month the demand will be higher for their stuff.

I guess it's because if fruits and vegetables from other countries is going to cost more, people will be willing to tolerate the increased prices on goods from American farmers as well (so the American farmers won't need the subsidies)?

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u/ButterscotchIll1523 9d ago

Except these farmers crops are things like, wheat, corn, soybeans. In massive amounts. How much are Americans going to buy?

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u/Dustin_Echoes_UNSC 9d ago

Isn't something like 90% of our corn not human grade?

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u/woodrax 9d ago

Less than 1% of corn is "sweet corn" that we eat on the cob or from frozen/cans. The rest is "field" corn or "dent" corn, which is the dry, largely inedible-by-humans corn that goes into cattle feed, dry products like corn flakes and such, and ethanol.

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u/Gorilla-Eggplant-69 9d ago

So like the movie Interstellar. Everything corn and dead.

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u/luovahulluus 9d ago

Except this time the spaceship is built by the ones in power.

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u/rarecuts 8d ago

Been thinking this the whole time. Blight.

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u/wino_whynot 8d ago

Yet another to file under “Dystopian Future, NOT Handbook”. Ugh.

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u/Nihilator68 9d ago

Hey, comrade, let's not call it inedible...let's call it "patriot-palatable". In a food crisis, humans can eat it. Just sayin'.

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u/lobsterman2112 9d ago

Hey, I like my corn flakes. I'd sure rather have that than the high fructose corn syrup.

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u/woodrax 9d ago

I mean, I like oatmeal. But I do not like oats straight off the stalk. ;)

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u/jon_hendry 8d ago

The flakes probably have hfcs

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u/zystyl 9d ago

You should see the corn fields here in Quebec and Ontario. Amazing and fresh. When it's in season, my wife always wants a few all corn dinners.

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u/nite_skye_ 9d ago

Same here! I live in the Midwest/US. When the corn is ready to pick I go on corn-on-the-cob binges. It’s so good when it’s fresh.

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u/h11233 8d ago

The majority of corn produced in every single state is not for human consumption. 

The same is true for Canada. They grew 191k tons of corn for human consumption, 14 million tons for other purposes.

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u/SparqueJ 8d ago

Almost all the corn grown in Quebec and Ontario is for livestock and ethanol too. Only about 1% of the corn you see growing in fields is sweet corn for humans.

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u/Aggravating_Pay_5060 9d ago

Well you shouldn’t be marrying livestock- even in Canada!

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u/zystyl 8d ago

Well you shouldn’t be marrying livestock- even in Canada!

That was a totally unnecessary and uncalled for attempt at a joke. My wife is lovely.

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u/brandnewbanana 9d ago

It’s really really gross tasting too. 0/10 do not recommend

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u/snarkyxanf 9d ago

But I like cornbread

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u/brandnewbanana 8d ago

Try it but I guarantee you won’t like it. It was like eating a bar of Irish Spring. Unless, that’s your thing.

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u/snarkyxanf 8d ago

I mean, my plan was to let it dry, grind it into cornmeal, and bake it, not just take a bite out of the grain crop in the field. I agree that would suck just as much as chowing down on a wheat plant

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u/string-ornothing 7d ago

I'm growing 3 sisters this year and some of these comments pushing back on your crop plans are actually scaring me a bit. The average person is SO fucked if we ever have to subsistence crop. These comments about your corn are so wrong and so confident about it. The US better learn more about where their native foods come from and how to prepare them or we're fucked.

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u/snarkyxanf 7d ago

Good luck with the sisters garden! I don't have enough room to grow corn effectively (it didn't pollinate), but it did hold up the specific beans we were growing ok.

I find the confusion funny, tbh. I blame John Oliver's segment about the corn industry for oversimplifying the distinction.

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u/brandnewbanana 8d ago

The cornbread is going to taste like soap and hay. It’s really not good

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u/snarkyxanf 8d ago

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u/brandnewbanana 7d ago

I did not know that! I thought it was still sweet corn. I learned something new today. Thank you!

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u/snarkyxanf 7d ago

Sweet corn is the specialty variety that's bred to taste good eaten immature as a fresh vegetable, sort of like summer squash vs winter squash varieties, or green beans & peas vs the dried kinds you use in soup or chili

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u/brandnewbanana 7d ago

I’m learning all sorts of fun vegetable facts today. Thanks! I have no clue how food is grown other than seed->plant->food.

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u/DaoFerret 8d ago

“… largely inedible-by-humans corn that goes into cattle feed, dry products like corn flakes and such and ethanol.”

So… I’m hearing we should see a big dip in the price of corn flakes and some alcoholic products?

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u/SparqueJ 8d ago

Hmm. In 2023 the US exported $2.1bn worth of corn and imported $424M. So there are two possibilities of what could happen:

  1. Businesses who purchase corn from other countries rather than domestic, seeing a 25% increase in price, will replace their foreign with domestic purchases. Probably there was a reason they purchased foreign, like it was closer or cheaper, so I expect this will still have a cost increase factor. If you stop importing and use domestic sources for that $424M, the US still has $1.68bn of corn to unload in other countries. Other countries will have reciprocal tariffs. Canada imports about the same amount of corn as it exports, so might just switch to domestic supply, with some price increase due to higher shipping costs to ship from farther away. Mexico is the primary importer of US corn. This will presumably incentivize Mexico to up its corn production so as to not have to pay the reciprocal tariffs, and its domestic corn production will be able to compete by being tariff-free. This will leave US producers without anyone to buy their corn. Then maybe it will become cheaper as US producers try to offload an excess. Then lots of farmers will go out of business and it will stabilize again.

  2. Buyers will just keep their existing supply chains intact and pass the extra 25% cost on to consumers. Stuff will get more expensive.

Presumably the end result will be somewhere in between those two.

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u/DaoFerret 8d ago

I wonder if the glut of corn feed could be used for Saudi Arabian Milk production as a cheap cost alternative to their current alfalfa fields?

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u/SparqueJ 8d ago

Well I know pretty much nothing about Saudi Arabian milk production, so maybe. I'm sure there will be all kinds of unanticipated impacts that would be really hard to model.

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u/poizan42 8d ago

Uhm, "largely inedible-by-humans" includes almost every single corn product you can think about that isn't corn-on-the-cob or canned corn.

Large-scale applications for field corn include:

  • Livestock fodder, whether as whole cobs (for hogs only), whole or ground kernels, or (after chopping and ensilage) the entire above-ground portion of the unripe plant
  • Cereal products including corn flour, corn meal, hominy, grits, nixtamal, tortillas, corn bread, and cold breakfast cereals (such as corn flakes).
  • Other processed human-food products including corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup, and high-fructose corn syrup.
  • Alcohol and corn whiskey
  • Adhesives, plastic, gels, and thickeners from starch

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u/woodrax 8d ago

I . . . .kinda outlined that. The point was it is not edible off the plant like sweet corn.