• ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I think you should read more carefully what that chart is showing.

      Corn for example is purple and gray mostly.

      Purple = live stock feed gray = biodiesel

      Soy is mostly purple, so most of it goes towards feeding live stock.

      So most of the subsidiary is just being spent to make it cheaper to raise live stock.

      • RedAggroBest@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Just wanna point out that it’s “biodiesel and Industry” specifically because ethanol is added to almost all gas and more.

        Ethanol is trashing engines and producing more waste via dead engines, all while providing jack shit for actual cleaner energy. The corn lobby landed ethanol requirements and it’s never going away now that they’ve found that revenue stream.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Also grains are subsidized to support the beef industry because feeding beef beef byproduct had predictable results.

    • Windex007@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t want to speak for them, but one can interpret crops subsidized for the purposes of livestock feed AS a subsidy for livestock. If you look at the sum of the purple sections (livestock and feed), it’s the largest.

      But you are right: buddy’s own chart does show a larger direct subsidy for corn than direct subsidy for beef.

      • ericbomb@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        You are correct, because barely any actually goes to corn we eat. Those subsidies exist just to make it cheaper to raise live stock. So while direct subsidies are higher for corn, it’s so high purely to help raise live stock. Just because we “can” eat corn doesn’t really impact the fact that we aren’t, it’s mostly live stock eating the corn the subsidies are paying for (And biofuel)

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          1 year ago

          Yup, here in Iowa the vast, vast majority of corn is known as “cattle corn”, and as described it’s used for cattle (and biodiesel, and pigs). Most farmers only grow sweetcorn “for fun”, as a side thing compared to the huge subsidies for cattle corn.

    • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Pigs and chickens don’t eat air, you know.

      70% of US soy becomes animal feed. Some of the rest is used industrially, or becomes biodisel. Relatively little US soy becomes soy sauce, tofu, etc.

      Soy subsidies, in practice, mostly function as a chicken and pork subsidy.

      You’ll notice that we heavily subsidize animal feed crops like corn and soy, and spend much less money subsidizing fruits and veggies, nuts, and other legumes like black beans or lentils.

      • Sybil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Soy subsidies, in practice, mostly function as a chicken and pork subsidy.

        i think there’s a case to be made that it’s actually a corn subsidy more than chicken or pork.

      • Sybil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        70% of US soy becomes animal feed.

        almost all soy is pressed for oil. the industrial waste from that process is the vast majority of what is fed to animals.