[quote=CONCHO]First, we need to become #1 in agriculture.
I know you were just being sarcastic, but it made me curious so I looked it up. We are in fourth place for agricultural output in dollars worldwide. Only China, India, and Brazil are ahead of us, and two of those countries have more than double our population. Per capita, only Brazil beats the US for agricultural output in dollars.[/quote]
The way to go is to compare agricultural output per square mile. We’re #4 worldwide by total area, behind Russia, Canada, and almost tied with China, way ahead of India and Brazil. I think that proves my thesis that our output is too low. And why is it too low? Because a lot of our food production is outsourced to foreign countries such as Mexico and Brazil, and many wholesome jobs in agriculture have been lost, and we have free traders and organized labor to thank for that.
We’re forced to import rice from China and wine from Italy. We’re not even in the top 20 in banana production (three largest producers are China, India, Brazil). Just think about all those jobs lost, or never created, because our nascent banana industry was smothered by farm workers’ unions (darn that Cezar Chavez to heck!) and shot down by competition from China and India.
Did you know that Venezuela and Italy both produce hundreds of millions of dollars worth of rabbit meat every year? Italy grows more kiwis than New Zealand, and United States produce more turkey meat than the rest of the world combined. China is all over the place, #1 in such disparate products as tomatoes, chestnuts, and sheep milk.
