What If Rice-Farmers Weren't Propped Up

[arnadstephen]

THE QUESTION:
What would happen if rice farmers were not subsidized ?

Would a unintended affect be more URBAN/SUBARBAN
sprawl on what was rice-farms.

Are rice-farms polluting the environment.

The sugar-cane industry in Florida, pollutes the
everglades.

_.

[senseiman]

Its kind of hard to tell what kind of an impact it would have on stuff if they weren't subsidized. On the one hand the rice fields are quite attractive and offer a bit of much needed open space. On the other hand, the high price of rice allows farmers to grow it even in urban areas on land that might be put to better use.

I don't know much about the environmental effects of rice farming. If its like every other industry in japan they probably use a lot of chemicals to kill pests and I can imagine that would harm the environment, but I'm not sure about details.

[tasuki]

Well, according to what I know of rice and rice farming in Japan, the varieties of rice grown in Japan are supposed to be amongst the weakest in the world and need a lot of fertilizers and such to allow them to grow. Rice farming in Japan has been proven to be polluting to both soil and water, but the the Japanese rice market and Japanese government allow little if no room to alternative imports.

It is my personal belief that if not susidised and indeed sheltered, the Japanese rice market would collapse inside a year, two at the most, as most Japanese (even if they insist they do) cannot tell the difference between home grown rice and an alternative import. With the economy being what it is at the moment, people tend to be thriftier, so I think that a lot of people would opt for the cheaper imports.

As for the panoramic aspect of rice fields, while I agree with senseiman, weighed against the environmental harm they are doing, I don't know which is better--keeping them there or paving them over...

[Mandylion]

http://oryza.com/asia/japan/index.shtml

Everything you could want to know about rice. A little off the origional topic, but if you like rice, enjoy.

[arnadstephen]

It is my personal belief that if not susidised and indeed sheltered, the Japanese rice market would collapse inside a year, two at the most, as most Japanese (even if they insist they do) cannot tell the difference between home grown rice and an alternative import.

_) My point is that will this then cause more
Urban sprawl to take over

_) Yes it makes rice expensive, but will it be like
Florida. The agriculture; orange-groves, cattle,
chicken-farms, hay-fields is disappearing to just
sprawl of people with cheap-housing.

[tasuki]

Most likely. But the human race is a cancer. Eating away at it's lifesource indiscriminately until it dies and the cancer dies with it...

[noyhauser]

I've said this before, but it didn't get a response. The main reason for Japanese subsidies in food is because it has become a pension system. The overwhelming majority of rice farmers are small tenents who are advanced in age. They rely on the subsidy to survive. These people live out their lives on these farms in their twilight years. So by removing the rice subsidy pretty well you would hit the people who need it the most.

[tasuki]

If that's really the case, then the rice industry in Japan is even weaker than I thought...

I can't say that I have noticed such a tendency when I lived in the middle of rice paddies for almost 2 years; all were owned and tended by middle-aged men and women, most of these people had other jobs, and they only left the daily care of the paddies to their parents... Yet, I haven't taken the opportunity to systematically check rice paddies throughout Japan, so you may well be right. Scary...

[arnadstephen]

Most likely. But the human race is a cancer. Eating away at it's lifesource indiscriminately until it dies and the cancer dies with it...

_) Who would volunteer to disappear ?

_) Whats the answer ?

_) EXAMPLE: Let the famines in Africe go without help,
that would cut the populatin. What if you were one of
those Africans dieing because of years of drought !
.

[tasuki]

I'I think you may have misunderstood me if you think that's what I meant. I'm not volunteering anyone to die, I'm saying the human race is the cancer of the earth, so no matter who dies from drought, we're all going the way of the dodos because we're going to kill the planet we're living on... May not happen in my generation or the next, or even the next, but I firmly believe that it's going to happen. If we go to the stars, we're just going to spread the cancer to other planets...