Farm Jobs Too?

This week's LNR has a column by John Schlageck of the Kansas Farm Bureau. In the column Schlageck cites the increasing pressures on the grasslands, the water resources and the ability of the American farmer to produce crops at an affordable cost. Schlageck is obviously more competent to comment on agricultural issues than I, and he is finally tenaciously optimistic.

But he seems to accept the "invisible hand" theory of how the economics of agriculture work. There are mysterious market forces at work, not manipulated by agro giants, nor ordinary human greed.

Seems to me that there are forces, primarily the forces of businesses that can't accept good stable profits but are always demanding ever increasing profits at the expense of everyone else - in other words forces of Greed - that are pushing and manipulating the markets. The outcomes, as we say a year ago, of this unbridled greed are not good, despite Gordon Gecko's assertion to the contrary.

We've shipped the manufacturing jobs to China - and brought back the pests that are ruining the American ecosystem - at no costs to the importers, or the manufacturers. Are we now going to ship American agriculture elsewhere - and what will come back with the imported foodstuff? And with what will we purchase these goods?