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Hacker News

American Agriculture Is Broken

17 points by JumpCrisscross

by Natfan

0 subcomment

by avazhi

0 subcomment

“Many farmers I’ve spoken to around the country over the years would love to raise a more diverse mix of crops. But insurance premium subsidies rise with the amount of acreage insured. The same goes for bailouts, which are given per acre. This, coupled with the high levels of concentration in the retail sector — big grocery chains would rather deal with large processors or growers — disincentivises smaller, more diverse and sustainable types of agriculture.”
This article is kind of all over the place but this paragraph and its reasoning in particular make no sense to me. I have no clue how she reached her conclusion about disincentivisation (a conclusion which may very well be correct).