<story><title>The Honey Launderers: Uncovering the Largest Food Fraud in U.S. History</title><url>http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/153774-the-honey-launderers-uncovering-the-largest-food-fraud-in-u-dot-s-dot-history?src=longreads</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ck2</author><text>The largest food fraud in the US is not honey. It is the corporate farming conglomerates who take government welfare to not grow any crops at all many years.&lt;p&gt;$11 BILLION taxpayer money paid to not grow crops since 2003. Seriously, google it.&lt;p&gt;That and massive subsidies for ethanol from corn. Most massive scam in US history.&lt;p&gt;Oh and they de-coupled foodstamps from corporate welfare now so expect this to become more insane over the rest of the decade.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nostromo</author><text>Not only do we pay American farmers to not grow anything, we also pay Brazilian farmers to not grow anything for our right to do so at home.  (The WTO fined the US for cotton subsidies.  Congress decided to just pay the fines to foreign farmers, rather than touch US farm subsidies.)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil%E2%80%93United_States_cotton_dispute&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Brazil%E2%80%93United_States_co...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other fun facts include:&lt;p&gt;1) The US price fixes raisins, to support farmers at the cost of consumers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Raisin_Reserve&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;National_Raisin_Reserve&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2) The US code has a minimum price for sugar.  Yes, you can break the law just by selling sugar for less than an amount determined by congress.  (Well, nobody in congress reads the thing, so it&amp;#x27;s probably coming straight from lobbyists.)&lt;p&gt;This is the main reason that everything we buy has corn syrup in it, and not sugar.  (Sugar price fixing combined with corn subsidies.)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://sugarreform.org/why-reform/what-the-experts-are-saying/policymakers/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sugarreform.org&amp;#x2F;why-reform&amp;#x2F;what-the-experts-are-sayin...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many candy factories that used to be in the US have moved to Mexico, because Mexico doesn&amp;#x27;t price fix sugar.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/04/26/179087542/the-lollipop-war&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;blogs&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;26&amp;#x2F;179087542&amp;#x2F;the-loll...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Experts will dispute this, but I swear Coke (the drink!) and chocolate tastes better everywhere else in the world.  In part because they use real sugar and not corn syrup.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Honey Launderers: Uncovering the Largest Food Fraud in U.S. History</title><url>http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/153774-the-honey-launderers-uncovering-the-largest-food-fraud-in-u-dot-s-dot-history?src=longreads</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ck2</author><text>The largest food fraud in the US is not honey. It is the corporate farming conglomerates who take government welfare to not grow any crops at all many years.&lt;p&gt;$11 BILLION taxpayer money paid to not grow crops since 2003. Seriously, google it.&lt;p&gt;That and massive subsidies for ethanol from corn. Most massive scam in US history.&lt;p&gt;Oh and they de-coupled foodstamps from corporate welfare now so expect this to become more insane over the rest of the decade.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anigbrowl</author><text>I agree with you about how terrible that is, but that&amp;#x27;s bad policy. It is not fraud because it is legal, even though the law may be crazily ill-advised and pander to a particular constituency.</text></comment>