When no one can live without food, why are farmers still poor?

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   arksysposted 9 years ago

   When no one can live without food, why are farmers still poor?
   
   What do you think they are doing wrong? shouldn't they be at the top.
   
   

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   DavidBrownLHposted 9 years ago

   This is basically a supply & demand issue...and if I outrageously simplify the answer, I could say that as long as the modern world's fighting an obesity epidemic, the relative overabundance of food is going to keep the prices food prices down - and farming out of the "10 ways to get rich quickly" lists.

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      arksysposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      interesting view ... so there is more supply than demand right? do you think they need to cut down the supply? Sorry I slept through all my economics classes.

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   tamarawilhiteposted 9 years ago

   In much of Africa, Asia and India, a third to half of all food goes to waste before it reaches market. This is due to a lack of refrigeration during transport, food eaten by insects and rats, food lost due to poor packaging.
   For many subsistence farmers, there is little way to get food to market beyond the nearest village because they don't have bikes, trucks, etc. That keeps food prices low for the poorest farmers, because most people around them are farmers, too. The customers in the village may pay, but they have ample local supply. Selling it in the city may yield more money, but a family without electricity and shoes may not be able to get the food to the city to get more money.

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      arksysposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      very true... some need a little help to get past that extra mile.
      thanks for your input.

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   peachpurpleposted 9 years ago

   The farmers slog like hell, sold rice to middle man who earns more money selling to factories, gow can they become rich if their price is the lowest

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      arksysposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      yeah, I was thinking the same... the middle man takes the bulk... but do you think we need more "farmers markets"?

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   cobrienposted 9 years ago

   It depends whether you are talking about peripheral, semi-peripheral, or core regions of the world. The peripheral region (aka. third world countries) have an excess of poor farmers because the farmers lack the resources they need to survive, let alone thrive. More than half don't even have access to clean water, and they certainly don't have the modern technology that core regions (like Europe and America ) have. In semi-peripheral regions, farmers are still poor because of lack of government investment. Although most have water, electricity, and gas, they still lack things such as the most modern agricultural technologies and adequate transportation systems. Most of these countries are in serious debt and cannot afford to invest in agriculture.
   Then, you have the farmers in the core countries, the countries that run the planet. The people who live in these countries spend so much time on education, careers, and entertainment, that they don't have the respect for the earth that farmers have (look at what we have done to planet Earth). These people are too busy eating steak to care where the beef came from, or what it took to get it to their table.
   I would love to see farmers go on strike and let people try growing their own vegetables. Maybe they would get some respect (and money ) then.

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      arksysposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Example: Third world Pakistan is the in the top 5 exporters in the world of chickpea, cotton, milk, date palm, sugarcane, mango and rice. Add apricot, onions, oranges and wheat to the top 10 list. Yet they are still poor ... middleman problems?

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