Farm Bill Baloney

The presidential candidates in the endless primary go on about leadership and unity and change and experience, but meanwhile in Congress its politics as usual. i.e., bipartisan pandering to special interests.

That's right, here comes the Farm Bill -- a whopping $300 billion plus dollars, passed over President Bush's objections by a veto proof 318-106 vote margin, packed with earmarks and unconscionable subsidies for those profiting from ethanol and world hunger.

To be sure, there's a 10 billion dollar increase for food stamps, emergency food aid for the needy, and other nutrition programs, which make up nearly two thirds of the spending.

But there are also big subsidies and tax breaks for farmers. Despite the fact that commodity prices are through the roof, up 126% for wheat, 57% for soy and 47% for corn, which is in just about everything from plastics, sweeteners and ethanol to, well, corn. And yes farmers are still being paid not to farm their land to the tune of about 30 billion a year.

Now American farmers were once a majority of Americans and at the very center of the American economy and American heartland values. My great granddad was a farmer in Mason City, Iowa and I am proud about my own heartland connections.

But let's get real: that was in the 19th century and today, with less than a couple percent of Americans still working the land, it's not struggling farm families but huge agribusiness firms that till the land and rake in the profits.

And guess what the new farm bill offers them? I mean aside from endless earmarks favoring race horse owners (courtesy of Kentucky's Senator Mitch McConnell) and Western Salmon fisheries?

What it offers them is continuing tax breaks on farm income up to -- unhuh -- $750,000 per farmer. President Bush asked to lower the limit to $200,000 but was ignored. Farmers who make more than $750,000 in farm income who don't want to be taxed have an option - get yourself a wife and your non-taxable income goes to $1.5 million.

So it looks like America is still deriving its core values from the American heartland, as represented by the courageous Congress: namely, let's see, greed, pandering, special interest earmarks and, er, cowardice. Now these, if the Democratic/Republican consensus in the House represents us, are common values around which the country can really unite!

Comments

[Ethanol]

Subsidies?­??????????­?? We subsidize everything else in the world....why not subsidize to lessen our dependency on foreign oil....U.S. ethanol production helped support the creation of 238,541 new jobs, more than 46,000 of which coming in the manufacturing sector;
U.S. ethanol production increased the Gross Domestic Product by $47.6 billion;
U.S. ethanol production increased household incomes by $12.3 billion;
U.S. ethanol production generated $8.2 billion in new tax revenue for federal, state and local governments; and,
U.S. production and use of 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2007 displaced the need for 228.2 million barrels of imported oil and an estimated value of $16.5 billion. Go to www.fieldstofuel.org for the rest of the story. Dr. Jeffrey B. Zeiger, Executive Director of the Alternative Fuels Institute

[BubbaC33]

A few thoughts about this posting.
Most of the subsidies go to large corporate farming operations, not the family farmers who continue to work the land.
The dramatic increase in the cost of food does not go to the farmer, but to the middle man selling the commodities. And few people seem to understand the costs of doing business as a farmer. A decent size John Deere tractor can cost more than a Ferrari. A combine is as expensive. Fertilizer prices continue to skyrocket. Seed costs are increasing at an alarming rate. The cost of diesel is over $4.00 a gallon, which has a direct impact on farming. It is terribly short-sighted to attack farmers for policies beyond their control.
The bottom line is subsidies serve to help keep food prices down in this nation. Yes, some land is left unfarmed, but there are good conservation reasons for doing this. It also helps to protect farmers from losing money when selling their products. But the bottom line is simple, those attacking US farm policies without offering a solution are not interested in finding a way toi end the problem, just to exploit it. The writer of the postong ought to be ashamed.

[BubbaC33]

A few more notes on Barber's posting.
The percentage of income a typical family in the US spends on food is about 10%. In Europe the figure is over 27% and it is even higher in Third World countries. Subsidies are paid by those with higher income and make it possible for those who are poorer to afford food. The US system may not be perfect, but an end to subsidies as proposed by Barber would certainly have an adverse effect of the poor in this nation. Farm subsidies are, to a degree, a form of income redistribution, those paying more in taxes are provding affordable food for the people with less income.
Another note is the payment to not grow certain products. For the most part land is left untilled due to environmental concerns. The land has to have time to recover in order to avoid another dust bowl. Barber can complain all he wants, but does anyone want to experience the dust bowl days that forced so many off the land? I am not willing to take the chance an environmental disaster of such proportions will take place in the heartland of America.

[Sciguy]

Can I get a subsidy for talking my chickens into NOT laying eggs? Howzabout for NOT growing tobacco (no more leasing our tobacco base since the settlement)? Could I get paid for NOT breeding my 29-year-old mare?

I have mixed feeling about farm bills - as noted in the article, they were supposed to help small farmers make ends meet. However, since huge agribusinesses get the money now - and themselves help drive small farmers out of business - the bills just don't make as much sense as they used to.

BTW, I think the bit about paying farmers not to farm was originally for 2 purposes: to try to get farmers to practice laying fallow some fields to allow soil regeneration, and to prevent market gluts of certain crops. Those subsidies were the only way small farms could afford to leave some land untilled, and the only way that small farms could afford to stop trying to squeeze every penny out of a crop that was over-raised.

[noneIn2008]

It does remain unbelievable to give away $300 billion.
And, it includes money to millionaires to not grow food.
Great to have government involvement to help protect the poor.

[demockracy]

Part 2: Subsidized corn is also a prerequisite for CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations). Feeding cows corn, rather than grass, is unnatural. The corn-produced illness are so common that, of necessity, CAFOs are the largest single U.S. consumer of antibiotics. This also makes them a breeding ground for super germs. Adding insult to injury, the American public must subsidize the development of new antibiotics to replace those rendered ineffective by CAFO over-use.

The current system of subsidies produces many low-quality corn syrup calories, too -- leading to a national epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes. So while farmers proudly point to falling food costs, health costs have been rising because of food that makes us ill.

Although it takes ten pounds of feed to make one pound of beef, even raising meat can be sustainable, sanitary, safe, and tasty. At Polyface farm, they practice "perennial prairie polyculture," and produce chickens, eggs, and beef as productively as huge factory feedlots without their environmental impacts. The farm is profitable, and free of the stench and flies common to CAFOs. And, most important, unlike the industrial farms current policy subsidizes -- where some fields are as much as six feet below untilled soil they are so depleted -- this Polyface farm's soil is *improving* without any industrial chemical inputs. (See www.polyfacefarm.com for details)

Although it looks like federal agricultural policy is just farmers' business, the truth is that these subsidies have enormous impacts on the larger society.

[demockracy]

(From a little earlier in this process): Getting Ahead of the Farm Bill

Congressional hearings are underway to reauthorize federal agriculture policy for 2007. Misguided federal policies currently favor agribusiness, and keep most farmers in a kind of indentured servitude, telling them they must use every fertilizer and additive available just to keep up with what is subsidized -- and their loan payments. Agriculture expert Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") writes that the current system essentially launders federal money for big agribusinesses like Cargill and ADM.

The current system also requires increasing amounts of imported petroleum -- for the fertilizer, for the mechanized cultivation and harvesting of the subsidized commodity crops, and to get the food to our tables. The food on U.S. dinner tables travels an average of 1,000 miles. Corn costs 1.2 gallons of oil per bushel. Midwestern corn farmers use enough petroleum-based fertilizer and insecticides to generate a 15-mile dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi river.

This misguided policy has international implications too. Until the recent ethanol fad raised its price, the U.S. was putting Central American corn farmers out of business because they couldn't raise corn cheaply enough to compete with U.S.-subsidized, industrial corn. NAFTA created our current immigration "problem" because it lowered the barriers to exporting subsidized industrial Iowa corn into Mexico. This is especially cruel since more than half the affected Mexican population gets by on less than four dollars a day.