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Comment by scrooched_moose | Hacker News Reader

An easier starting point would simply be shifting meat subsidies to fruit and vegetables:

> According to recent studies, the U.S. government spends up to $38 billion each year to subsidize the meat and dairy industries, with less than one percent of that sum allocated to aiding the production of fruits and vegetables.

https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cogn...

Broadly it would keep food prices stable and encourage healthier alternatives.

Edit: Sorry, I assumed this is a US conversation which may be incorrect. I understand UK is similar, but don't know about the rest of the world.

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That 38b claim is unfounded.

The source in that article goes to the writer of Meatonmics. On their site, they just claim that number without pointing to where or how they get that number.

In 2019 the gov pumped out 22b in subsidies to all farmers across the board. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/12/31/790261705/fa...

So where's this 38b data coming from? Since the meatonmics agenda is to get rid of meat production, sourcing from them is the same as the health benefits claimed by the The Tobacco Institute.

I'm not OP and I think you're right, but subsidies are not often direct cash injection. It can be bailing farmers out of debt, stripping taxes for slaughterhouse, or even workers compensation for incident on meat plants.

BLM land access is one area that could be a large subsidy not counted as a direct subsidy. That can't really be shifted to fruits and vegetables (I don't think the land is suitable). There are grazing fees (though not everyone pays and they have trouble enforcing them), but it sound like they could be considerably lower than market rate. See "State and Private Grazing Rates" in:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21232.pdf

It is a huge political issue going back hundreds of years as ranching was arguably the largest driving factor behind the European colonization of the Americas.

An easier starting point would simply be shifting meat subsidies to fruit and vegetables:

Assuming your goal is to raise meat prices, the problem is if the US for example stops subsidizing meat it will just mean that people will buy more non-US meat, unless you at the same time slap on an import tariff (which is tricky to do). Taxing meat at the point of sale solves all those problems.

That being said, you should probably also look at shifting subsidies towards making fruits and veg cheaper.

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