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I think we should start doing more taxes combined with subsidies. Give everyone a $1/t carbon tax. Give everyone a ~$1/t farming subsidy based on current carbon production. Nobody loses, but everyone is incentivized to decrease carbon production and the faster ones profit more. Phase out the subsidy over X years if you like.

Otherwise, you’re right. We’re upsetting the balance of a very complex, very important system and causing a regressive tax in the form of price increases.

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manvillej 15 hours ago | parent [-]

a combined tax and subsidy to try to drive farmers into more sustainable practices in a fiscally neutral way isn't a bad idea, but I think it is just a very risky and necessary roll of the dice.

I think inevitably, there will be price increases. The questions is just how bad and how many farms survive the transition.

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account42 4 hours ago | parent [-]

You misunderstand, driving small farms out of businness so they can be taken over by Gates and other big farming monopolies is the real goal not an unwanted side effect.

	▲	mistrial9 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		a casual American perspective here -- it is easy to mistake the cause when an effect is obvious. Yes, coordinated market regulation ends up increasing consolidation (with capital). Not everyone thinks this is a bad thing. No, it is not a plot by a few powerful individuals (easy to imagine, convenient emotional target). Rather there are "policy levers" and economic forces that operate at once, and interact in complicated ways.