Not a fan of Marxism as a solution, but boy was he right about the trajectory of technological development and the resulting power balances.

Don't worry though, AI will totally make it all better. You know so because the wealthiest people in the world insist on it.

▲

alephnerd 2 days ago | parent [-]

You don't need Marxism - multiple competing farmer cooperatives works as a middle ground between small businesses and capitalism. This is why Indian dairy is outcompeting North American Dairy, and is a model North American farming can adopt [0][1]

The economics of American farming fail because 70% of profit is retained by the processor, versus 20-30% in India.

Ever ate Mozzarella in the US? It's made using Indian skim dried milk. Same with any sort of artisanal cheese that uses 6-8% milk fat.

[0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-extinction-t...

[1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/indias-dairy-revo...

▲

SpicyUme a day ago | parent | next [-]

There are some large dairy cooperatives in the US. I'm not sure how healthy they are as an outsider, in general I think agriculture is a good place for cooperatives.

It looks like Michigan's milk producer cooperative is selling in some partnership with India’s Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF).

https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/mmpa-to-make-milk-for-world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darigold

	▲	alephnerd a day ago \| parent [-]
		> There are some large dairy cooperatives in the US They don't tend to own processing infra, though that is slowly starting to change. And some of them line "Land o Lakes" are cooperatives in name only, and are very abusive to small farmers, because they can only process at 1k+ head sizes. > It looks like Michigan's milk producer cooperative is selling in some partnership with India’s Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited (GCMMF) Yep! Because India can't export Indian milk to the US without tariffs, and American cows are fed meat, so Amul decided to corner the vegetarian milk market by making the cooperative deal with MI. Blume Ventures had a good write-up on this I need to find.

▲

impossiblefork a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>The economics of American farming fail because 70% of profit is retained by the processor

The above sounds like a very Marxian criticism though, essentially Marx's exploitation thing, only instead of considering a proletariat and capital owners, small capital owners and big capital owners who are middlemen and able to lock down the ability of the small capital owners to sell their goods.

▲

selimthegrim a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Has Amul not been completely captured by the BJP at this point though?

▲

alephnerd a day ago | parent [-]

Yep. Gujarat BJP. State cooperatives are captured by the ruling party of a state.

That said, Amul is just one of 200k cooperatives in India. Verka (Punjab/HP), Nandini (Karnataka), Milma (Kerala), AAVIN (Tamil Nadu), and others generate Amul level profits and are managed by opposition parties.

The issue is dairy processors in the US tend to take 70% of profit, versus 20-30% in India, because most processors are themselves cooperative owned.

Farmers also tend to "go it alone" in the US, but in South Asia the whole village collaborates. Even Punjabi farmers here in Californa collaborate with each other on capex investments, but the Anglo farmers go it alone.

A cooperative ag model would really help Pakistan as well, but that would require destroying the military's monopoly on various segments of the Ag industry which they won't give up.

▲

selimthegrim a day ago | parent [-]

Another issue might be that PDS was abolished in the 80s (utility stores at provincial level are similar but not the same)

I believe arhatiya also play a similar role in Pak as in India. I wonder if Modi’s farm bill affected these coops.

▲

alephnerd a day ago | parent [-]

Nope. The MSP laws didn't affect cooperatives. The issue is, a common side hustle Punjabi, Haryanvi, JK, and Himachali farmers do is import MSP crops from states like MP or Bihar and then sell it to the MSP broker in Punjab, Haryana, JK, or Himachal. As trucking in India is largely consolidated in PB/HR/HP/JK it makes it easier for larger farmers in those regions to build the supply chains needed to do an MSP arbitrage.

Essentially, instead of farming, you become a commodity broker (arhatiya)

This is why you didn't see similar protests in other states in India that also have MSP like Kerala or Gujarat, because they don't have the same logistics chain (otherwise they'd do it as well).

> Another issue might be that PDS was abolished in the 80s (utility stores at provincial level are similar but not the same

Oof, that is not good. India has shown that a PDS style model can work nowadays thanks to digitization. Pakistan needs to redeploy the PDS system if the ag economy is to recovery, especially after the floods.

> arhatiya

Yep, but they tend to be in those commodities that aren't covered by a cooperative.

	▲	selimthegrim an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Was thinking more of arhatiya as short term lender but that tracks