- Brazil is a third world country.
- labor is dirt cheap
- on visits to Brazil, the level of human labor in agriculture is stunning. (Not possible in US at current wages). Compare Japanese automated factories to Chinese factories.
- subsidies (perhaps) not needed because some inputs (labor) is so cheap
- This is fantastic for Brazil.
I can't defend subsidies, and I don't know very many who can. However, it's part of the game now in the US, so you'd be a fool not to take advantage of them.
- corn prices (adjusted for inflation) are half of what they were in the 70's (http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_Articles/Corn_I...), while oil (a huge input to agriculture) is 3x as expensive (http://inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical...)
- Dry land agriculture is going to explode.
- drought resistance corn is going to increase the area of arable land in the US. (The west is relatively dry, we have a lot of "less productive" range land that could be used for agriculture. (Our land is right in that margin, all land is currently in soybeans and it is no-till.) Previous years (80's/90's) it was a mix of corn, oats, barley, sunflowers, wheat, sorghum, flax and some soybeans. - The last few years have seen record harvests. A combination of good weather and excellent crop varieties is probably the cause.
- Ag Input prices have soared recently.
- Improvements in chemicals have made no-till a viable option.
- The main problem is weed control. Canada Thistle, etc, roundup ready crops are an amazing feat of engineering.
On being green.
- Our farm hasn't seen so much wildlife since the 70's/80's.
- Verdant fields support way more wildlife than native prairie. However, there is still plenty of land that for other reasons, terrain, etc is used for grazing, hay production.
- We had our land in the conversation reserve program (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/crp/) for quite some time. Now, crop prices make that ridiculous.
- Suburban chemical runoff is a faster growing problem then farm runoff. Chemicals are extremely expensive, so with new high tech methods, each part of the field gets the precise amount of chemical needed. Contrast this to urban/suburban runoff: http://www.chesapeakebay.net/landuse_urbansuburban.aspx?menu... "Unlike many farmers using nutrient management plans, suburban residents often over-apply fertilizer to their lawns and gardens."