Tough Luck, farmers...

I've got no sympathy for the farmers who will get cuts...


...first of all, the only farmers who will be affected are those who get more than $250,000.00 per year in subsidies. That pretty much keeps the "small family farmer" we all envision in tall cotton. The deepest cuts will be to the huge agri-businesses, who all vote red anyway.

Secondly, federal price supports supply about half of the income for both sugar and cotton, but the cotton farmers and sugar farmers complain the loudest about "welfare queens" in the city, when they are, in fact on welfare.

Finally, the surplus cotton, sugar and other goods on the market depresses the price for these goods in the "real market", causing farmers worldwide to be underpaid for these products (and causing Mexican cotton farmers to lay off workers, who then come here to work, for example).

If any other business couldn't make money without govt. assistance, it would simply go under. Why should farmers be any different?

rural America elected bu$h.
So they reap what they sow!

Forgive them for they no not what they have done?

It is only in recent years that Farmers have turned Republican, and that has been primarily due to social issues that help create the urban/rural divide, along with the failure of many leading Democrats to stand up for individual farmers back in the 1970's and 1980's during the wave of foreclosures.

Historically, farmers have been the backbone of some of the more radical mass-movements in the history of our country. For instance, Kansas farmers helped form a part of the backbone of the abolitionist movement. More importantly, the agrarian revolt during the Gilded Age was the impetus for the rise of the Populist Party led by William Jennings Bryan -- and many of the reforms called out under the populists were eventually adopted by Democrats.

Throughout post-war America, farmers tended to vote Democratic. After all, the power-center for Republicans in those times was still the industrialized Northeast and Great Lakes regions.

It really bothers me when people make these blanket statements like "Farmers have always voted repuke" when the historical facts indicate that the reality was, in fact, the exact opposite.

Most of the farmers I knew were repukes. I didn't understand it then and I don't now.
This was late 60's early 70's

...and they have been lifelong Democrats, up until the early 90s, when the party abandoned their economic interests to appeal to Wall Street.

They're still in business because they ORGANIZED like hell in the 1970s and 1980s. They joined farmers' unions, formed co-ops, and got involved in the political process. They were strong Democrats, as were their neighbors, during the 1970s and 1980s, when the national Democratic party still talked about rural issues.

My in-laws run one of a handful of commercial family farms left in their county. Everybody else went under and had to sell off.

And no, they're not a "specialty" farm, growing "boutique" products. They're a real working farm, growing corn, peas and soybeans. Much of their stuff is sold to companies like Green Giant and may end up on your plate each day. Their annual revenue is in the high six/seven digits, but their profit, OTOH, is often non-existant.

Contrary to popular belief, there's still family farmers in America, producing our food every day.

The rural areas of Iowa are still R(ed) and have been (at least since the '80s when my husband ran for office...)

He always tells the story of a parade he was in where a man yelled from the crowd, "hey, Dave, don't forget about us poor farmers". He yelled back, "I won't....if I ever meet one."

I think he lost that county!!!

Oh so they were Democrats until forced to change because of "social issues" -- in other words, it's more important to deny me my rights as a woman or my friend's right as a gay than it is to stand up for themselves. No pity here either. They have indeed reaped what they sowed in this election.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

... the sooner we can get down to actually BRIDGING divides between rural and urban folks. I don't know if you realize it, amazona, but your line sounds strikingly like the mirror image of conservative evangelicals who always talk about how downtrodden and persecuted they are.

Now that I've gotten my rant off of my chest, please allow me to explain. The social issues are not necessarily the bread-and-butter of rural folks. Rather, they have been exploited as WEDGE ISSUES by the right wing. And this exploitation has been aided by the actions of a lot of Democratic officials who have embraced corporatist economic policies in various degrees, often at the expense of rural folks and farmers.

For instance, during the 1970's and 1980's when there were wave upon wave of family farm foreclosures, where in the hell were the Democrats? They controlled Congress at that time. But they largely abandoned them.

So, as a result, these farmers fell on some pretty hard times. When people are facing a very uncertain future, do you think that they're generally open to new ideas, or do you think that they're more apt to fall back into "what they know" in the face of uncertainty? If you guessed the latter, you're correct.

And the GOP was happy to oblige, moving in with social wedge issues to drum up a right-wing populism that won them over, primarily because the Democrats had abandoned a good bit of the left-wing populism that had initially brought them electoral victories.

Do most people in farm country hate gay people and want women to be forced to risk their lives to get an abortion? No. But the truth is that they probably don't really KNOW any gay people, so it's easy for them to be cast as a generalization to rural folks. Furthermore, the fact that the church is STILL the center of social activity in these areas also tends to make them more personally opposed to abortion on religious grounds, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily want to lock up women who get them or force them to face death in order to have one.

The thing that troubles me most when I see posts like yours is the complete lack of empathy in them, and how you dig in your heels against that which you can't immediately understand and adopt a rigid stance that isn't at all open to dialogue. Then people on the other side turn around and do the same thing, and we're left with a complete and utter lack of civic dialogue in this country and we all wonder aloud how things ever got to be this bad.

and division. Empathy is called for if we want to win elections. Resorting to the same mind set as the wingers will not help us or them but serves the motives and agenda of the junta/neocons very nicely.

When we adopt a "Them against US" attitude based on a few wedge issues and then apply it to all issues, the neocons have won cus WE are doing their work for them.

on edit: typo

Some of us who have experience living in both rural and urban environments have to do the hard work of trying to bridge this divide and create some sort of understanding. It just makes my heart heavy when I see people on our side engaging in the same kind of generalization, vilificaiton and politics of division that we decry in the right wing.

I expect us to be better than that. Perhaps sometimes I expect too much....

...we had Charlie Stenholm, a 'conservative'(pro-life, pro-religion in school, pro-Iraq war) democrat and a lifelong cotton farmer running against Randy Naugebauer, a typical R/W republican. Stenholm was a senior member of the agriculture committee and Naugebaur was a rookie congressman.

Everyone wrote articles in the local paper about how Stenholm would have the clout to protect the cotton farmers from exactly this cut in subsidies and would keep ag's interests in mind. The Cotton Grower's Association endorsed Naugebaur, because he had a (R) by his name and for no other discernable reason. He certainly didn't represent their financial interests, in fact he HURT their financial interests.

Naugebaur won handily, and the cotton farmers are getting exactly what we (the democrats) predicted they would get.

So, as another poster opined above, ye reap what ye sow.

I'm well aware that they're practically whores for unnecessary subsidies. And perhaps that is part of the basis for your railing against ALL farm subsidies.

The fact of the matter, though, is that subsidies are a part of US farm policy that was developed under Democrats in the post-WWII policy. It was done to help farmers get through rough seasons w/o losing their farms, and to also help propel US food production.

Do I think that the subsidies need to be reformed? Absolutely. Do I think that we need to do away with them altogether? No, not at all. I think that we'd encounter many more problems by getting rid of them than we would by even keeping them the way they are now.

Only if "history" only extends back into the 1960's.

Read about Bryan, or La Grange, or the Populists sometime, and get back to us.

If you note, I mentioned Bryan and the Populists in my initial post.

But then again, based on your response, it appears you didn't actually READ my initial post.

before you start getting all shitty.

:horse's ass:

Cletus. :) Have a good time freepers!

Gyre

The fewer family farms there are, the more your food will cost. Corporate farms are not generally good land stewards, good neighbors or good employers. When the corporations have control of your food sources, and it is happening faster than most realize, you will be dealing with the same mind-set you deal with when you fill your gas tank: They know you have to have it and they will charge what they damn well please.

Programs to subsidize crops and to help farmers pay for expensive land improvements help the consumer too. Crop prices are NOT what it takes to produce the crops in too many cases. Crop prices DO NOT rise as fast as other market prices. The subsidies and cost-share programs helps make up the difference to the farmer between what crop prices SHOULD BE and what they actually are. Crop prices (not what you pay in the stores) have been artificially kept low for a couple generations in America.

Within days of the November election, Congress repealed a requirement that foods sold in the US be marked with the country of origin. At that point, about 40% of your foods were imported. Why do you suppose they stopped requiring labels with origin on them? Food imports will dramatically increase and they don't want you to see how dependent the US will be on foreign food production. More of what goes in you belly comes from multi-national corporations; the same ones bulldozing the lungs of the world in the Amazon basin.

When the family farmer is extinct in the US, when all that land in the breadbasket of the nation is under either corporate farms or concrete from land developers, your kids will have a different world when they buy food.

Think twice before you applaud the demise of farm subsidies. What is being done is not happening for your welfare any more than for those Red State (we need to LOSE that mind-set if we wanna win votes!) farmers. Anything the junta does is for the corporate greed crowd marching towards world domination. Anything they do is a step towards making Americans members of the One World the corporatist want. That would be the Third World by the way, and you know how well people in the Third World eat, don't you?

Their stuff has been priced too high for years, I'd be dead now if not for "corporate" food.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

If so, it is likely you are buying from some of the family farms in my area.

People need to realize the family farm puts food on most American tabels.

The folks here abouts grow wheat, barley, lentils, beets, peas, cattle and sheep. Those are family farms and they send what they grow off to America's food supply system.

The reason the food at Farmer's Market is more expensive is you are actually paying what it costs to produce food. Americans just don't realize the many ways their grocery bill is actually subsidised.

Never complain about farmers when you have your belly full. They are not the ones getting most of the $$ you fork over at the store. There are costs incured getting food to market and the markup in those industires amounts to a huge chunk of what you pay.

food prices (real food mind you like the unprocessed kind) to be cheaper from my farmer's markets, than from grocery stores.

but here in Atlanta, farmers markets have also co-opted the grocery store model. they jsut have "cleaner" food.

where it is very competitive because, of course, a portion of the reduced price is paid for by the taxes on those of us who don't farm. So family farmers in foreign countries get driven out of business because they cannot compete with subsidized farmers in the U.S.

I totally realize that U.S. farms put food on my table. I am grateful enough to pay the full price (cost of production plus profit) for my food, just like I pay the full price for anything else I buy. What I disagree with is the subsidy. The subsidy encourages farmers to produce more than they can economically sustain. And although it keeps my supermarket price artificially low, it also keeps the farmers market price artificially low, so he comes to depend on it. It also produces surpluses on the market, because no matter how much cotton is grown in the US, someone will buy it, and if they won't, the government will, at a nicely inflated price.

The surpluses (un-needed goods) on the market have to be got rid of. Usually they are sold into foreign markets at prices that put THEIR farmers out of business; sometimes they are simply destroyed.

That's not supporting the farmer, that's just bullshit.

Your comment about never complaining "about farmers when you have your belly full" remainded me of this song, written during the rise of the Greenback Party:

The Farmer is the Man

The farmer comes to town with his wagon broken down,
But the farmer is the man who feeds them all.
If you'll only look and see, then I think you will agree
That the farmer is the man who feeds them all.

The farmer is the man, the farmer is the man,
Lives on credit 'til the fall.
Then they take him by the hand, and they lead him from the land,
And the middle man's the man who gets it all.

The lawyer hangs around while the butcher cuts a pound,
But the farmer is the man who feeds them all.
And the preacher and the cook go a-strolling by the brook,
But the farmer is the man who feeds them all.

The farmer is the man, the farmer is the man,
Lives on credit 'til the fall.
Then they take him by the hand, and they lead him from the land,
And the middle man's the man who gets it all.

When the banker says he's broke, and the merchant's up in smoke,
They forget that it's the farmer feeds them all.
It would put them to the test if the farmer took a rest
Because the farmer is the man who feeds them all.

The farmer is the man, the farmer is the man,
Lives on credit 'til the fall.
Then they take him by the hand, and they lead him from the land,
And the middle man's the man who gets it all.

Now the farmer's back in town, with his wagon broken down,
Once again he is the man who feeds them all.
Things are better now, no doubt, because the middleman's left out,
And the farmer is the man who feeds them all.

The farmer is the man, the farmer is the man,
Lives on credit 'til the fall.
Then they take him by the hand, and they lead him from the land,
And the middle man's the man who gets it all.

most of them are corporations. It is corporate welfare monies, and I have no problem cutting it.

These are the people who put smaller farmers out of business.

programs to help them stay afloat and producing. The big corporate, multi-national farms ARE out to put small farmers out of business, you are right about that. But the family farm frequently runs as a limited partnership for various reasons. Don't lump them all together, please.

The cuts the junta has planned will just about be the death knell for the American Family Farm. I know some Federal employees for the Dept of Ag who bust their humps to make the programs work for the small farmers. They work against top management that keeps changing the rules for programs to help farmers. A lot of employees just give up and don't work as hard learning the changes and seeing how to use them to benefit their small farm clients. Some of them work their asses of to find ways to work around the bureaucracy and still help the client.

When the family, limited corporation, farm is extinct and the big corporations have all the productive land AND WATER under control, well, I hope you have a garden, my friend, cuz food will get pricey.

I am going to take a run at adding melons this year.

I agree, I just wish there was a way to untwine the 2 to make it work.

Its like the Mellencamp song (Rain on the Scarecrow):

This land fed a nation, this land made me so proud.
Son I'm just sorry there's no legacy for you now.

...and vote Repuglycan anyway. Plenty of those idiots drive huge 4X4 pickups with "W-04" bumper stickers on these gas hogs around here.

Screw em'!

and fields. There are some folks with legitimate reasons for big vechicles. These are not guys who always get to drive on good paved roads like too many city boys pretending they need a tough vechicle.

The trucks are used because they are needed for the conditions and the cargo farmers need to haul around to get their work done.

The family farms are not a "huge agri-business corporations". True, most are incorporated, but for legal reasons, most have to be. And yes, there are a lot of big numbers on the ledgers, but at the end of the year, they are damned lucky if the ink is black at all.

Try to gain some understanding of the other guy's world. It will help America.

When a farmer owns a huge John Deere, Case, Caterpillar or other humongous tractor to pull his disks, rippers, ect. with, he/she doesnt really need a gas-hog 4X4 pickup truck and his wife doesnt need the huge V-8 Suburban 4x4 gas-hog to go shopping or pick up the kids at school, either.

BTW, I am from farm country born and raised, in the Sacramento Valley to be exact, and I know exactly what does and does not go on there.

Most of the farms here are huge, like in thousands of acres huge, not the "Back 40", and the people that operate them call themselves "Agri-businessmen", not farmers.

Rant over!

Historically speaking, CA farms have tended to be more consolidated under wealthy landowners since their inception than farms in other parts of the country.

Where I grew up, in rural Western PA, none of the farmers were driving around in shiny new vehicles. Most of them were out in the fields working 12 hrs a day, 6-7 days a week, with not too much to show for it at the end of the year. When you would see them around town, chances are it would be in a beat-up old pickup truck, the same one they used to drive around on the farm.

...as you say they are in PA.

California farmers grow a very wide variety of crops that can't be grown elsewhere, and the small farmer who has a few acres to till is almost all but gone here.

Most of the ones left lease their land out to the huge agri-combines and havent farmed thier own soil for years.

drive. Many go MILES and MILES on dirt roads to get to where they have fields. Farms today are not like a big front yard. Families buy what property they can and often it is a long way from the bunkhouse! There are weeks or sometimes, MONTHS when the roads are impassible even with the biggest truck and engine they can put in a truck.

You have no idea what it takes to get the kids to school around here! The high school used to have a dorm cuz back in the 40s-60s or even into the 70s, there were too many weeks when people could not get into town to take kids to school. Many folks have to drive over dirt roads, mud, ice, snow for miles to get kids to the bus pickup spots even now! Lots of kids just stay in little houses, apts in town during the school year. Many of the ranch wives who teach do the same.

Do not assume you know whether or not my neighbors really need those big trucks. Come on out and see for yourself that you are dead wrong on this one.

The whole farming community of the US does NOT live in a pleasant area like the Sacramento Valley. I was raised in California. I live in Montana. The two are a bit different. The needs are not always the same.

And yes, the farms and ranchers here generally run into thousands of acres, but they are still family owned and operated which makes them the family business/farm. There is no way for most farms to be viable unless they can produce a large yield. That takes acres. We are not talking 40 acres and a mule, that is true. Hell, around here 40 acres is a lot the city folks build their homes on when they are tired of city life.

Just heard from a Dept of Ag employee that the cuts will save about 1.7 billion over 10 years. The damage that will do is way over the savings. In the meantime, what were those figures for $$ that just sorta went missing in Iraq?

It's like $$ for schools vs $$ for prisons. Which is the better investment?

of California, we get rarely see snow, and then not much at all.

Back in the day, pre-Reagan, most of these "farmers" got along just fine with 2x4 pickup trucks around here, so I cant see why they need a 4x4 just to get stuck even worse in the mud and have to fire up a tractor to pull it out.
:eyes:

:toast:

Thank you for the welcome, friend. :toast:

... in America are those small farms who grow food to feed their own family. There are going to be a lot more of those in the coming years.

But they never get price supports or other subsidies - I'm tired of socialism for the rich. $250K in SUBSIDIES? Corporate welfare.

expenses. What may look like big bucks to someone who doesn't have to buy tractors, the expensive attachments the tractors use to actually work soil (the tractor is just the wheels and the horsepower, it needs other devices to actually farm), drilling, pumps, pipes to get water to fields, oh, yeah, and the fees to the engineers to design all the systems which have to be customized for each particular project...

People who don't have a clue what it costs to grow food probably do think $250K is a lot of money. For the family farm, it is NOT a considerable money when they look at the list of expenses. Folks around here spend that easily, and still barely make a living personally.

People! This animosity against "Red State" farmers is not good. We are giving into the junta's 'divide and conquer' tactics when we participate in anger against America's rural populations! It is no different that the tactic of demonizing gays to get the fundies in a lather! STOP and think about that! And for the nation's sake, actually look into what the costs of producing the food you eat really are.

Stop bitching about the other guy and apply the liberal practice of learning about the other guy's world, needs, problems. Try some of the empathy most of us pride ourselves on!

And get some information about real costs of farming. If more of us really learned what the other guy is dealing with, well, we might be more inclined to win friends, influence people and WIN ELECTIONS! This business of demonizing people who have their hands in the dirt, or ON THE EARTH, as I think of them, just plays into the neocons agenda of pitting citizen against citizen. It is giving into the same IGNORANCE the wingers are guilty of, and WE are smarter than that.

</rant>
Peace.

.... who need a half million dollars worth of equipment is probably farming several hundred acres and does not fit my definition of a "family farm".

BTW - I'm probably one of the few folks on DU who actually owns a (and uses) tractor :)

A farmer... who need a half million dollars worth of equipment is probably farming several hundred acres and does not fit my definition of a "family farm".

Having grown up in a region full of family farms (even having one in my extended family), I can tell you that what you just described is EXACTLY the definition of a family farm.

What exactly do you consider a family farm? One that grows crops on 80 acres with only a mule and iron plow, where all crops are harvested completely by hand?

.... that takes that level of capital investment, hold on to your hat, a business.

Besides, we're not talking about 250K worth of equipment, we're talking 250K a YEAR. And we're not talking about 250K of capital investment a year, we're talking about 250K in subsidies, no?

Anyone getting 250K in subsidies is just getting corporate welfare. Why should farming be sacrosanct. I'm against subsidies for 99% of businesses.

Look - I don't know the details here and maybe I'm talking out of turn. But I do know that huge agribusinesses get the vat majority of subsidies, and if we can get rid of those it would be GOOD for the "family farmer".

.. I have NO SYMPATHY for anyone who voted for Bush**, whether they are a farmer or a basketweaver.

There is a price for ignorance, prejudice and gullibility. Too bad we all have to pay it.

However, you seem pretty delusional about ho wmuch capital it takes to start a family farm. In my rural home county, land is $10,000 per acre. To run 200 cow/calf pairs, a farmer would need 500-750 acres. That is $5 million to $7.5 million dollars just for land. 200 cow/calf pairs would cost a minimum of $200,000 or so. Tractors and eqipment could run $200,000 or so as well. Cattle farming requires relatively cheap farm equipment compared to crop farming.

... that it costs a lot to farm.

If subsidies were designed to help the small farmer, I could get behind them (although as a principle I'm against any subsidy except perhaps alternative fuels research or some other strategic activity) but they are not.

Big agribusiness winds up with the lion's share of them and consumers pay higher prices as a direct result of farm subsidies and price supports.

Posts here have convinced me that it costs a lot to farm, ok, I get it. But explain to me just why the taxpayers should subsidise it? Why shouldn't they subsidise computer programmers whose jobs have gone to India. Why not automakers whose profits are slashed?

Subsidies suck. Nothing here anyone is going to say is going to change my mind about that.

All that is subsidized too. NO ONE in America fails to benefit in some way from expenses paid out of tax coffers unless they grow and manufacture everything they use every day of their lives. Odd, that is exactly the same thing I have to remind the wingers in the farm area where I live. They all think they are not beneficiaries of various forms of tax subsidies too!

If you eat, it is in your best interests that farmers are able to keep farming.

Instead of holding a grudge against farmers, work to bridge the communication gap between the urban and rural populations. Work to further REAL understanding of what is going on. The politicians working for global corporate concerns are putting the yoke of slavery on ALL of us. Working against each other does not do much in the battle against the real problem: financial tyranny which knows no national boundaries and strives to circumvent ALL national laws. THERE is a target worthy of anger and hostility.

.... public roads are a taxpayer expense. They are used by the public. Farming is a business, and it's profits go to the farmer.

Sorry if I don't believe in subsidising private businesses.

You are simply way off base here. I do not hold a grudge against farmers, I want to be one (on a very small scale) one day.

But I don't feel sorry for ANYONE who voted for Bush and is now getting the consequence. For those who voted Dem, I feel sorry.

there! Nothing silly about that.

Public roads subsidize the transportation industries, all the retail industries. So shall we STOP spending on roads? Trucking companies would have to build their own. Retail outlets would have to do what, hook up the ol transporter to get the things you buy on their shelves? Gee, last time I looked, those were private businesses yet they benefit from tax monies going into the infrastructure. They all want employees who can read, and most of those read via the public school system.

Name a business in the US which does not benefit from something paid for from the public coffers. There is nothing silly about recognizing that some things are best paid for communally.

I applaud your desire to work the land. That is great. Now, how about this, we make peace and start asking about the DOD budget? They seem to make out OK with $$ coming from the federal budget, but all the people I know in the military are begging for basic supplies from families and friends. So, how about we address some real $$ woes and find out just what the hell the junta is doing with the hundreds of billions of $$ the DOD seems to make disappear with no particular benefit to the troops they are so fond of saying they support.

Like gay marriage bans and the fight over women's rights to keep legal all medical treatments they may need in a lifetime, this farm subsidy issue is a diversion thrown out to make us all bicker among ourselves as a nation. While we all scamper about, shadow boxing with wedge issues, the thugs are killing America and enslaving the world.

Peace.

.... you and I would probably be in violent agreement about 99% of everything related to politics.

But I just don't believe in subsidies. And I don't care if some Bush-voter gets to live with the natural consequence of his ignorance, predujice, gullibility and greed.

So lets agree to disagree, and go on to discuss the things we do agree on :)

Don't want you taking advantage of subsidies ;)

That is why I suggested theybe phased out over time to allow farmers to transition.

I do support environmental subsidies though.

1. My family's farm participated in a cost share subsidy to install cattle water troughs away from creeks. This program was set up so that farmers paid for the farming economic value of the troughs (about 70%) and the government paid for the environmental value of the troughs (about 30%). These troughs reduce the amount of polution in creeks and promote healthier creek banks.


2. Another program I have heard about, but my family has not participated in involves the government renting 100 feet of land alongside creeks for 15 years or so. This land is planted with native trees and this improves the environmental condition of the creeks.

I think the health of the environment is a communal benefit, and I don't mind paying for steps taken to improve it.

And they help make sure you eat well. Just because they sell crops, they aren't a family farm?

If the family has the land, mortgaged though it may be, and they work the land (few can afford year around help) and it is their livelihood, it IS a family farm.

The family farm is good for America. Will you be better off when all food producing lands are under the control of the multi-national mega-corporations? Will you fare better under the tender mercies of faceless, nameless corporations thousands of miles from you? Think about how the oil companies hold Americans hostage 'over the barrel' and apply that to food.

The family farmers are just like most of us, trying to eek out a living, raise their kids and provide a little something for their old age. We need to get to know them better and see how we can make AMERICA better instead of falling prey to the neocon tactic of pitting American against American while they rob all of us of the treasury, the environment and our kid's futures!

In the dry west, it takes a lot of acres to make a living and yes, one can own thousands of acres and still be working it only with the help of one's spouse and children. Don't know what you'd call that, but when I see a guy, his wife and his nine year old being the ones doing the farming/ranching, I call it A FAMILY FARM!

What you might consider a lot of land is not necessarily a big farm anymore. We are talking about folks who make a living selling food crops, not subsistance farmers just trying to fill the cook pot on their own stove at the end of the day.

Get outside, off the pavement, get some education on the REAL state of farm life in America and stop believing every bit of propaganda you hear.

Come on out to visit me and I will show you around. I will show you some fine people who are busting their butts, wearing old clothes, living modestly and worrying about surviving the next year. They can own a lot of land and equipment and still be living on the edge of extinction. We all lose if they walk off (or are forced off) the land.

Look up the median age of the American farmer. If it was so damned easy, there would be younger folks staying with it. It is hard and it is expensive but all Americans benefit for their efforts. Turn you back and snicker at farmers at your peril, and your children's

Here, have some Soylant Green... It's in your future when the common man is driven off of the land.

In my mind, a fmaily farm has to be big ennough to make a profit for the family. For cattle, that is a minimum of 200 cow/calf pairs or so. I would imagine for grain, that it may be something like 2000 acres. I don't see how farms of a few hundred acres could be sustainable.

If you're not farming several hundred acres, you're probably a hobby farmer, not someone who is relying on it to make a living. My dad, grandpa, and two uncles farm about 4,000 acres. My brothers help out as I did when I was younger. They don't hire anyone outside the family, except for 2 weeks during sugarbeet harvest. Is that not a family farm?

And this will be a real shocker to everyone: They're Democrats.

Some of us who have lived in farming regions realize that many farmers are stalwart Democrats.

Most who don't believe that farmers can be Democrats seem to be of the more urbane variety -- the type that probably doesn't know any farmers and didn't ever live among any of them.

:toast:

had 1600 acres that he farmed. It was OUR FAMILY FARM. He started buying the land a piece at a time when he was 17 (about 1941), from money he made traveling in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas helping with harvests. So yes, big acreage can be a family farm. And yes, you need big, expensive equipment to run the family farm.

Are gravitating to niche markets, specialty, high dollar foods, and many are going organic. And yes, these subsidy cuts are going to effect family farmers, both Republicans and Democrats. And yes Virgina, there are plenty of Democrats in the rural areas of America, along with a lot of independents, non-voters, and Republicans. Some of America's largest progressive movements have been born in rural areas, so let's drop the stereotyping, OK.

Oh, and just so that you folks know, these subsidy cuts, if they pass, will be effecting you, for the price of the cuts will be passed directly along to the consumer. Are you ready for higher food prices? At least those of us in rural America can grow our own, and save money, thus in a number of ways it won't bother us terribly much. But you urban folks are just going to get hammered. So keep that in mind while you're hammering away at the rural residents, and cheering the end of "corporate welfare"

for their votes against the junta soon enough. Food prices have been 'kept low' despite what they think when they open wallets at the urban supermarkets. Corp prices have not really risen when you look at increases in what it costs to produce the crop. A little education would go a long way to help urban and rural populations understand each other.

Many of the local farmer/ranchers in my area are among those you cite who work to get into niche markets. They know they cannot compete against the huge multi-national farming corporations. Corporate farms in other nations do not have to observe EPA regs, OHSA rules, community zoning standards, and so on. As weak as those rules have become in the US of late, they still present expenses. When a huge international farming corporation bulldozes the rain forest to grow veggies, grain and cattle, there are reasons. Those economic reasons are putting the family-corporation-farm in the US in serious jeopardy. Farmers know this and are looking for the knowledge, skills, wisdom to find ways to stay in business. Niche markets/added value is the way they are going.

The family farmer is a better steward of the land than the mega corporation farms. The Dept of Ag has all sorts of hoops farmers have to jump through to get some of the program monies. The hoops change often. Small farmers have to take on projects which enhance wildlife conservation in order to get some project monies.

I would invite some city folks to go out to rural areas and drop in the NRCS offices in counties where food is raised. Talk to the conservationists who have to guide farmers through the governmental mazes that these programs are. Learn about how the other guy lives.

Learn and then do not let the neocons pit city against rural. The problems affecting one population ultimately affects the other population. We need to realize that and work together.

And if there is a farmers' market in your town/city, go there! Buy FRESH foods that have not racked up more frequent flier miles than you ever will! Support your neighbors. Get good food and learn.

If you want meat without a bunch of antibiotics in it, which ends up in your kids and makes it harder to keep them healthy by creating 'super-bug' which are antibiotic resistant, thank an American farmer. He/she is working to provide the good food you want. If you want 'spots on your apples, but leave me the birds and the bees' look for on organic grower and support them by buying their produce. It will cost a bit more, but in the long run, not supporting local food producers will cost you MUCH more!

Learn and you will appreciate the other guy. Listen and you will make friends and influence elections. The GOP pretends to listen and empathize with rural Americans. WE can do them a step better and do it for real, figure out win/win solutions to the problems Americans face and we can win back the farm belt.

It is in our interest to support those who grow our food. It is in the nation's interest to stop the damned smirking at the problems faced by our fellow citizens.

...farm subsidies help out the farmer, not the consumer. The money will stop flowing to the farms to produce what isn't needed, and it will stop flowing to the rural areas for farm goods. Rural means red, according to the pundits and polls.

The consumer pays the taxes that provide the farm subsidy, so he pays the money to the farmer regardless of whether it is in the form of higher prices or higher federal taxes.

When I go to the supermarket, I'm thankful the prices are low, don't get me wrong. When I file my 1040, however, I'm equally pissed that my taxes are high. Stop the subsidy and the farmer will charge me what the food is worth, not some artificially low price. His dignity increases because he doesn't have to be on welfare, and I benefit because I don't have to pay his welfare through my taxes.

My wife's parents own and run a "family farm". Not only do they feed their family, they also produce food sold in grocery stores-- you've probably even had some of them yourself.

Although they farm less than a thousand acres, their annual budget is at least $1 MILLION. Do you have any idea what it really COSTS to grow your food? Judging by your snap judgement, I doubt it.

Farm machinery in particular is not only expensive to buy, but expensive to maintain, too. My in-laws are using machinery that's at least twenty years old, if not thirty. The cost for a new combine is about $600,000. Making repairs on their aging equipment can cost as much as $100,000/year, depending on the circumstances. Many times, they don't even MAKE BACK the costs of planting, because of artificial price caps put on consumers' food prices.

Farming (even for family farms) is not a cheap business. That $250k you're complaining about means the difference between staying on the farm your family's lived on for a century, or going to live in a homeless shelter somewhere.

And thank your inlaws for all they do and all they put up with.

you've done a great job here explaining this complicated subject for city folks. My family no longer farms. We were one of the many family farms that ended up going bankrupt in the '80's . Somehow, even though our operating budget was over $1 Million annually, we never managed to qualify for these farm subsidies everyone screams about. And we were always lucky if we actually made any money at the end of the year. Now I am trying to find 40 acres to buy so that I will be able to feed and support my family in the coming turbulence.

One of the easiest ways I have found to explain farming to people is this:
Farming is the only business in this country where you buy everything you need to do business (equipment, seed, livestock, buildings, etc) at retail prices and you sell your produce at wholesale. EXCEPT, you don't get to set the wholesale price based on the price of production, the market, controlled by a few large agribusiness corps, tell you what they will pay you.
Up until last year, agricultural exports were the one area where we did NOT have a trade imbalance.

America has had a cheap food policy for over a century. Now that we are getting closer to corporate controlled food, people are about to learn how much food really costs. Not to mention the fact that even though the family farms that are left often produce some of the best food around, once it leaves them it is processed in ways that are not necessarily good for you as a human being.

If your area has a Farmer's market, patronize it. You will be buying better food and helping a real family farm. If there are Community Supported Farms in your area, find one to participate in. Do your family a favor and buy them better food.

And not matter what happens with farm subsidies in this budget, be prepared to pay more for food.

I am continually amazed at the slagging that family farmers get from so-called 'progressives'. Most people have no clue as to what it takes to run a farm these days.

IMHO the Democrats have effectively abandoned rural America because we REFUSE to talk about the issues that really affect them-- like family farms, revitalizing the rural economy, domination by big agribusiness, etc.

Somehow, we think we'll get back the 'rural vote' by 'moderating' our voices on cultural issues like civil unions and abortion. :eyes:

This quote from an article in the Nov 3, 2003 issue of the Nation sums it up best:

(Democratic Rep.) Kaptur says that's because the party has been peddling gimmicks rather than populist substance. "Most of the people who run the Democrat Party, like Terry McAuliffe, they're city people," she says. "They think it's just a matter of tinkering with the party's image." Democratic consultants have created a mini-industry that tells candidates to go "country" by sponsoring NASCAR teams, joining the NRA or fuzzing positions on abortion or gay rights to mollify social conservatives. Rural folks just laugh. "You can be ardently pro-choice and support gay rights and still win rural areas if you have an economic message," says Rhonda Perry, a family farmer who is program director with the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. "I don't think too many people in rural Missouri sit up nights worrying about gay rights. But they do sit up nights worrying about how they are going to keep the farm or how they are going to get health benefits after the meatpacking plant shuts down."

Democrats haven't had an economic message for rural areas in almost 20 years now. We didn't have it in 2004, and we didn't have it in 2000. Hopefully we'll have one in 2008.

Otherwise, the rural parts of the country will remain solidly red.

Yes, Dems used to have a populist message and they used to listen better. Too many are not really practicing what they preach about tolerance and that hypocrisy gets thrown in my face around town where I live. I have to admit, I have nothing to refute it with and that saddens me. The Party of FDR used to have a lot of pull with people here!

I have always mused that we need a foreign exchange program for students IN AMERICA! We need to get country kids into the cities for some broadened experiences and we need to get some city kids out into rural farming communities to see what it takes to get supper on! Seems that will be the only way to bridge the divide - actually walking in the other guy's shoes! Bet we best hurry, cuz the small towns that serve family farms are drying up and blowing away. The median age for farmers does not bode well for the continuing of cheap food on American tables.

We liberals are pretty good about fretting over indigenous peoples losing their way of life in far corners of the globe. That is one of the best things about us; we see people in jeopardy and we try to help save peoples and cultures. It would go a long way with voters in those much maligned "Red States" if we could show some of that same consideration with the loss of a way of life closer to home.

The folks around here really have pretty much the same values and concerns as the folks who were my neighbors in the cities where I have lived. Wish I could show them and all the urban dwellers just how much alike you all are. Breaks my heart to see brother fighting brother in America. We are ALL better than that.

I have a few choice words for the republicans but I will say one thing that if they mess with my job, they are done!

:toast:

You think that family farm with a million dollar a year annual budget can't be sold for, like...a million dollars?

That's 100k in interest a year simply invested or enough to start a very nice small business of another kind. I'm thinking they could avoid the homeless shelter.

That's like saying that an old beater car that cost $2,000/year to keep running can be sold for $2,000. If the blue book value is only $1,500, that ain't gonna happen.

A farm with a $1mil/yr budget will NOT sell for $1mil. Why?
BECAUSE NOBODY IS BUYING "FAMILY FARMS" THESE DAYS!

Most of the farmers who lose their farms don't end up "selling" them-- most of them are repossessed by the bank that holds the loan they take out at the beginning of each season. If you're crop doesn't cover the cost of the loan (and the bank refuses to extend your credit), you are SCREWED.

Your farm, and everything on it, is put up for auction. Most things sell for a fraction of their actual worth. If you're lucky, that may cover the cost of your debt, and you'll escape with your homestead and not much else. Otherwise, you'll declare bankruptcy and have to "start over" when you're in your 50s and all you've ever done in life is run the family farm.

...it deserves to fail. And it doesn't matter who I am or what the business is or how old I am, etc.

That's the hard reality of living in a market economy.

Farmers grow our FOOD. We need food to survive. THAT is why it is subsidized by the government, and under strict government regulation.

What do we do if an essential public utility is failing? Abandon it? What if the power company went belly-up and couldn't produce electricity anymore?

And what have you got against farmers, anyway? It sounds like you know a fair bit about it. Do you have a desire to have our foodchain dominated by the whims of corporations?

You seem to be relying heavily on the Cato Institute mentality for your arguments. That's sad.

...in fact I come from a family with a lot of farmers in it.

Farmers produce food, we need it to eat. Well and good.

Construction companies build houses, we need them to live in.
Furniture companies build beds and chairs, we need them to sit in.
Remington makes guns we need to defend the country.

Necessity does not make the argument valid.

In an integrated economy (like ours) someone will provide for the necessities if Pa Kettle's farm goes out of business. That is a simple reality.

I oppose subsidies because they actually HARM the farmer. He is producing based on an artificial construct of the market, so he's not producing the most efficient product. Subsidies produce surpluses, so the price he can get for his production without the surplus is artificially low, he is dependent on the government, and he is not subject to 'market discipline'.

Market discipline requires any other business owner to take into account the fact that there are risks and costs to any business. Irrigated cotton is not the best use for Texas upland, because the cotton farmer can't produce cotton at market price. Because of the subsidy, however, the Texas upland is covered in cotton farms. It ought to be cattle ranches, pecan groves or apple orchards. The price of land is also artificially inflated here, so that it is more costly to buy a house or business. That harms the rest of us.

If a public utility goes "belly up" it is because they weren't able to charge enough to cover the cost of producing electricity. The reason a public utility must be regulated is because they are a monopoly, generally speaking. Farms aren't.

I grew up in Texas, and have learned a lot about farming here. I lived in Wisconsin for 10 years, however, and I learned a lot more. Most Wisconsin farms recieve NO government subsidy. Those farms are universally cleaner, better maintained, and more profitable than these marginal cotton farms in N. Texas living on the dole. Believe me, I want farms to prosper, and I want family farms to prosper. I don't think subsidizing them is any kind of solution.

It's like saying, "You, American Farmer, can't possibly compete with the Mexican cotton grower, so here's a check from the Gummint to keep you afloat." If you think about it, it's insulting.

the cost is artificially kept low because food is sorta important! Farmers have other people set prices. They do not get to say what a calf or bushel of grain will sell for. They are TOLD what they will be paid for it. Subsidies go toward leveling the playing field.

There are also programs the Dept of Ag has which will 'cost share' with landowners to help pay for improvements which also help the environment in an area. There are programs where farmers are paid a stipend to not work land, but to rest it and let it return to a natural state. That benefits the environment and wildlife. It makes it more likely the whole eco system gets a fighting chance at staying alive and functioning better.

So here is some big news fellow progressives: Part of the deal to get rid of 'subsidies' is also an attack on the environmental gains that have been made in America in the past few decades.

Can we get it that it is all connected and we ALL benefit when the land has good stewards? The family farm is a better steward than a multi-national corporation. Keeping families on the land is a better way to take care of the earth.

Americans spend a smaller part of their income on food than almost every industrialized country.

because the government heavily subsidizes the cost. Part of that subsidy is aid to farmers.

Like you said, if we had to pay the 'real' cost of food in this country, there'd be riots in the streets.

Part of the reason we have a government is to ensure that the basic needs of the population are met. And that includes food.

Having lived outside the US in another industrialized country, I know how cheap food is in this country. We really do get over easy in so many ways. People like to complain about subsidies to farmers and such, but if they disappeared you can bet they'd complain even more.

This year the maintenance of agricultural subsidies was progressive.

The pace of change in today's society is dizzying.

I'm sorry but the majority chose this. I'm tired of supporting those who won't support me.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

I'm sorry but the majority chose this. I'm tired of supporting those who won't support me.

Let me get this straight. A majority didn't support you, they chose something else. So you're going to say, "The hell with them," in the hopes that you can... what? Remain a minority with the majority choosing against you?

Good luck with that. :eyes:

BTW -- do you even KNOW any farmers? Or are you an urbanite who professes to know what's best for everyone else, particularly those whose lives you cannot understand?

The farmers hadn't voted against us last year, and most were against them.

The voted against us this year, and many (don't know about 'most') are for them.

Your anger at a part of the population you seem not to really know much about is sure like the anger we complain about the wingers showing toward various parts of our liberal community.

How is adopting their anger gonna make things better in America? How about learning and then teaching? How about understanding and really communicating?

I'd love to have you visit. There is much we might learn about each other's worlds. I have lived in large cities and in rural towns. I wish I could take some farmers to the city to show them that side of the coin and help them understand. I can't so I try to be a good urban ambassador to their part of the nation.

We make it better by understanding and working to be understood. The neocons take over by making us turn against our brothers. Which route makes more sense in the long run?

that last bit could be applied to welfare, social security, veteran's benefits medicaid, medicare...ad nauseum.

Now you snobs will pay dearly!

I have to wonder what the hell all those rural red staters thought they were going to get from Dubya. First he convinced them to vote for him by deluding them into thinking the inheritance tax applied to them. Then he ran his down home schtick and convinced them he was one of them. Dubya would have offered to shuck corn for votes. You asked for it, you got it (my apologies to Toyota).

"First he convinced them to vote for him by deluding them into thinking the inheritance tax applied to them."


How did he delude them into thinking it applied to them? In my home county, 750 acre of land would run $7.5 million. Add in equipment and livestock and that family farm would be hit with inheritance tax.

He failed to make a distinction between Ma & Pa Kettle and the little spread and a megafarm.

If I own a business, say a furniture factory, worth 7.5 million dollars, and I die and pass it to my kids, I have to pay inheritance tax, right?

If you own a business, but it's a farm or ranch, worth 7.5 million dollars, and you die and pass it to your kids, there is some reason you don't have to pay inheritance tax?

We need furniture, too, don't we?

Rather, I was rebutting the claim that only "megafarms" can get hit with the inheritance tax.

It is how one manages to pay for one's old age. There is very little property transfer via wills in these parts.

family has consistently voted Dem. Secondly, they get nowhere near $250,000 in subsidies. Most of their money goes right back out in the purchase of the equipment they need to keep running. My cousin's yearly income after expenditures? About $40,000. Sorry. Nowhere near even gazing upon high cotton. :hi:

I, too, have a lot of family members who are farmers.

I wasn't around yesterday to look at the posts as they came in, but I read through them this a.m.

First of all, I have nothing against farmers! Especially Wisconsin farmers, since I spent the last 10 years up there. (Go Packers!)

What I am against is this notion that the "family farm" cannot survive in the absence of subsidies. Wisconsin farmers know that this is a myth moreso than farmers in the rest of the country. Wisconsin produce like dairy, corn, wheat, table vegetables, cranberries and soy get nothing like the subsidy that cotton, sugar and various other crops get. Despite the lack of subsidies, if you go to Wisconsin and look at the farms you will find that they are better maintained, turn a larger profit, and have newer equipment than, for example, the cotton farms here in north Texas.

Is an unsubsidized product more expensive at the grocery store? Sure. But don't buy into the idea that you aren't paying for the difference! When you raise my taxes to pay a farmer to grow excess cotton, don't tell me I benefit because my Levi's are cheaper. The cheaper Levis don't lower my income tax bill which goes in the farmer's pocket as a "subsidy".

I'd rather pay an extra dollar for Levis than pay an extra buck-fifty in income taxes.

And what is so sacred about the Family Farm, anyway? I recognize that we all came from parents or grandparents who farmed; that was the nature of the economy at the time. Many of us also came from families who ran restaurants. They provide a "vital service" just as farmers do. Should I subsidize a failing restaurant to keep it in business because it is a "family restaurant"? If a family buys a soap factory they can't keep afloat, should I pay extra taxes to keep that failing business open? No. Businesses fail all the time, including agricultural businesses. They should be allowed to fail, because a failed business is the result of someone's poor decision. Either they undercapitalized, failed to keep sufficient cash in reserve or misunderstood the business environment.

Take North Texas' primary crop, irrigated cotton. Lubbock Texas is up on the Caprock of Texas, an arid highland featuring dust storms, drought, sudden weather changes and fickle temperature. Cotton is grown here, irrigated by wells, and produced by the ton. In Arkansas, on the other hand, a cotton farm can get all the water it needs through annual rainfall, with only a little bit of irrigation. It is much cheaper to grow cotton in Arkansas (generally speaking).

Why should I, the taxpayer, subsidize expensive irrigated cotton, when cheaper rainfall cotton is available? Wouldn't a more efficient use of the caprock be raising cattle or another dry crop?

I recognize that year to year weather makes the survival of a farm a risky enterprize. When risk is part of an enterprize, insurance, savings and economies of scale are a proper response, and in the case of disasters, I understand the need for and support FEMA. But each and every year to be shelling out money to businesses that would fail without it makes no sense to me.

You are a complete snob! Farmers have been a part of our life and your snobbiness is unacceptable to me!

...since they use part of the money that I earn through MY WORK to keep farmers in business.

Read through some of havocmom's posts on this thread to see how you benefit from this as well.

The subsidies keep my food prices low and my income taxes high...

The subsidies don't come out of thin air, I have to pay for them, too. I'd rather pay the real market cost of the food than have the price kept artificially low by giving the farmer money out of my income taxes.

taxes by every whining member of the GOP I ever had to listen to! Hear that tune in those fancy over 55 only retirement towns in the southwest: 'Why should I have to pay taxes from money I earn from MY INVESTMENTS for schools, my kids are grown!' Or in a fast growing urban area: 'Why should I pay taxes from money I earn through MY WORK to pay for some sewer system in a part of town I never shit in?'

I am willing to go out on a limb here and speculate that ALL OF US have benefited from things in our lives which were paid for in part by taxes other people paid with the money THEY earned through THEIR WORK.

you know somehow, somewhere, the people get screwed ROYALLY

the government...

You grow your crop...you harvest...you take it to the local elevator and they pay you...and that is your only option...

One year the beans were wet...my fil had a decent sized crop...he got paid less then normal cause the beans were wet...but then the elevator sold them for more then normal cause there were fewer then normal...

In any other business you can sell to the highest bidder...farmers don't get to....and that is the reason for subsidies..

But it is also the reason that prices for our food stay lower...

ETA a site that explains why there are farm subsidies and why they are needed..

http://www.alfafarmers.org/issues/farm_programs.phtml

That's really awful. Bush screwing his own constituency. I wonder if they still think highly of him?

Its all being run by huge corporations like Waste Connections and Waste Management. Every time I switch to an indpendant they get run out or bought out. Hauling off your trash every week is as important as something to eat. Ever witnessed a trash haulers strike--it ain't a pretty site after a couple of weeks.

So why does family farmer getting Government checks and not a family trash hauler?

...while "Family trash hauler" is an ox to be gored.

and it's about time. I'm sick of subsiding corporate welfare/

All those Red State assholes spend OUR money on big Dodge trucks and get their asses all fat and happy with Ag dollars, and then bitch about us, ban our relationships, ad nauseum. Maybe they can live some of the "rugged individualism" they're always preaching for everyone else.

or are you just assuming that your stereotype applies to all farmers? My father and brother work 16 hours a day 7 days a week to keep a family farm running and they certainly aren't getting their "asses all fat and happy" with subsidies. They also don't preach "rugged individualism" though they do drive big trucks because they need to be able to tow wagons and drive through plowed fields. Also, they are DEMOCRATS and voted for Kerry! Your stereotypes of farmers are just as ignorant as conservatives stereotyping homosexuals and liberals.

This is a great thread because there are so many misconceptions about farming today, particularly the struggles of family farms to enlarge in order to remain competitive against corporate farms. It's a shame to skip over the substance of it and to devolve into name calling.

My wife's family are farmers. It's not an easy life, but somebody has to do it. Agreed about the stereotypes, too-- not all farmers are wealthy, especially here in the upper midwest (I'm in MN). I'm almost waiting for the "welfare queens in Cadillacs" driving to the store to spend their foodstamps on cigs and alkeehol. :eyes:

Times are tough, and getting tougher, trying to compete with massive feedlots, huge agribusiness companies, and unsympathetic lenders. Methings some people need a trip to the family farms to see how "rich" they're all getting off their "fat" subsidies.

I'm addicted to Chris Hume's "road trip" videos...

Halfway through, this one features an "artist" M.T. Liggett, who has something to say on the subject of "subsidies," and a lot of other things...

I'm angry,frustrated, amazed and sometimes inspired by what Hume has shown in these vignettes.

http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/DAY8_300k.mov

If any other business couldn't make money without govt. assistance, it would simply go under. Why should farmers be any different?

Personally, we need to get rid of all subsidies, price floors, price caps, and possibly import quotas (on sugar esp.).

Obviously, we don't need to do it tommorrow, but that should be our eventual goal. Every one of the above artifically inflates either the profit of the farm, or the expense to the consumer, or both. I might be ameanable for one time grants to farmers, or gaurenteed loans for items, but the subsidies have to go.