this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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https://archive.is/2026.01.25-132135/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/business/mississippi-delta-farmers-rice-prices.html

Most of what is farmed in Mississippi and the rest of the country isn’t food that goes on Americans’ tables. It is soybeans grown for animal feed, corn grown for ethanol, rice grown to export to Central America and so on. The fruits and vegetables that Mississippians eat are probably grown in California or in other countries.

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[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 62 points 1 week ago

Oops! Now that we've perpetuated a global economic hierarchy of trade with raw agriculture products outsourced to India, it no longer makes economic sense to grow broadacre monocrops in our wealthy country.

Please, won't someone think of the poor struggling farmers who only farm 11,000 acres with 3 people? Just the modest area of 17 square miles, 3000 times what freed slaves in Reconstruction dreamed of in order to satisfy their every need, an area that would take you 2 hours to walk from one end to the other.

There's just no way to make that land profitable. No way at all.

[–] Coolkidbozzy@hexbear.net 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What am I supposed to do with 2.2 million pounds of rice?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the noisy industrial fans drying the rice on his farm in Merigold, Miss. "I'm serious. What am I supposed to do?

I dunno, give it to food banks? Give it to cuba? Eat it with a large spoon?

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 45 points 1 week ago (1 children)

God I hate it when the Kulaks complain as if their own incompetence isn't to blame.

Mfw my Risk/Reward economic system landed on Risk

[–] oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

Better than destroying it, which is unfortunately all too common in situations like this

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Omegamint@hexbear.net 33 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Grapes of Wrath quote insert here

[–] ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 week ago

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

[–] duderium@hexbear.net 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Something something, capitalist overproduction, imperialist decline, something something

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 30 points 1 week ago

Something something rotting oranges hosed down with kerosene, animal corpses buried and guarded, something something grapes of wrath

[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 33 points 1 week ago

amerikkkan small producer farmers are the modern capitalism equivalent of when kings would pay a guy to be a hermit and live in their garden as part of the decor. they're aesthetic set-dressing to maintain the mythologized terrain.

[–] regul@hexbear.net 32 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure there's a rice shortage in Japan. Good thing we have an efficient global economic system.

[–] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 week ago

There's a food shortage in Japan in general. They're net food importers. That's why you keep hearing about agricultural innovations happening there like factory vertical farms and such. They're capitalist so it's not out of the goodness of their hearts, it's because they don't produce enough food domestically so they have to import and innovate or it all collapses.

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[–] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 31 points 1 week ago

Only in capitalism is "food too cheap" an issue...

[–] miz@hexbear.net 29 points 1 week ago

children are starving to death in Gaza

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A "farmer" with 2.2 million pounds of rice. Sure.

This capitalist and exploiter of the marginalized publicly declares their entitlement to profits, begs for sympathy.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago

Bro, at least try to write the article yourself. Don't just tell ChatGPT to write a random story about a sad farmer. I made less than $40 on commissions last week, still had to spend all week working though, this POS probably made more than that for less than 5 minutes of typing a prompt.

[–] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

ankle deep on 30ft of rice

Nah bro that is a recipe for getting sucked into the rice pile and suffocating

[–] Grapho@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

fool me rice, shame on me

[–] TankieTanuki@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm too lazy to read it. Is it tariffs?

[–] Robert_Kennedy_Jr@hexbear.net 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

India, the world’s largest producer of rice, eased export restrictions in late 2024, flooding the world with rice. Customers in Latin America, where most U.S. rice is exported, increasingly prefer the taste of varieties grown in other countries.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 28 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Genuinely it has been a godsend, I haven't bought American style rice since basmati became cheap.

[–] Johnny_Arson@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Basmati is so fuckin good.

[–] Des@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

i love how the grains stay nice and separated. makes making fried rice so much better

[–] Grapho@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

fr. Basmati and jasmin are so much better and I wish arborio and other short grains were as cheap.

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

And of course the media whines whenever something becomes more affordable and the average consumer benefits. But when labor is so affordable and abundant some people who are perfectly capable of work are written off as unemployable? No one cares. If anything they’ll frame porky as the victim because too many people want to work for him and the poor widdle guy can’t handle all the choices.

[–] bobs_guns@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Isn't rice from that region relatively high in arsenic?

[–] segfault11@hexbear.net 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

waiting on maga tiktok influencers to shill arsenic rice like they did with raw milk and beef tallow

[–] bobs_guns@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

gives you that trendy victorian twink look

[–] 30_to_50_Feral_PAWGs@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] san@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

as a bonus, the personality comes with the look

Kefkaesque :gregor-samsa-jokerfied:

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[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

yeah i would eat 10x the rice if i wasn't in the US

[–] bobs_guns@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The rice from cali isn't so bad, neither is the rice from India or Vietnam and you can perhaps buy rice imported from there, but of course the good stuff is more expensive.

[–] Rod_Blagojevic@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nobody wrote an easy to read pamphlet about this in 1847 and called it The Communist Manifesto.

Edit: Responded to the wrong comment. 🤦‍♂️

[–] mactan@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

everything is higher, some things just don't get as frequent or as publicicized findings

[–] DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Pretty much anywhere that historically grew cotton yeah. Enough that recommended limits are like one serving per week. Lmao I eat three servings per day 😭

But yeah cali and imported rice is mostly fine, and at least for me hasn't been too much more expensive.

[–] oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

Things are not going great for American farmers. Thanks to foreign farmers normal Americans won't starve, but these farmers might. This also screws small farmers the most, a lot of massive farming conglomerates can probably just pivot.

This will weaken the American economy, and it will completely screw over rural areas and Trump supporters, and likely undocumented immigrants as well, while leaving those darn city liberals (i.e. Trump) chilling.

[–] corvidenjoyer@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Kulak Detected.

stalin-shining

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