2007 Farm Bill will be debated this week

This is a pretty good Q&A piece about the Farm Bill.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-farmqa2dec02,1,3158710.story?coll=la-news-a_section

Passed every five years, the measure sets agriculture policy with consequences for the environment, international trade, food safety, rural development and school lunches.

By Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 2, 2007

The farm bill -- which sets the nation's agricultural agenda every five years -- could be revived this week after stalling two weeks ago in the Senate.

Question: Does the farm bill matter if you're not a farmer?

Answer: The Food and Energy Security Act of 2007, this year's farm bill, sets the country's agriculture policy but it also has consequences for the environment, international trade, food safety, rural development and food assistance for poor families. Lawmakers enact a new farm bill every five years. This year's bill has a price tag of $288 billion and has mushroomed to 1,600 pages. It has come under attack from an array of groups, including physicians and taxpayer advocates, as well as the White House, which has threatened to veto it.

This is a huge spending bill which effects every human on the planet who eats, every American who has kids in school, and every farmer or ag related employee in the country. I am from a farm state, live among and have family who are farmers but my income isn't directly effected by the farm economy. I do however have very strong feelings about these farm bills.

My main peeve revolves around the subsidy portion of these bills. When these bills come up there are always the claims that farm payments = welfare for farmers. I don't agree at all. My belief is that farm payments = payment for control of private business. For a farmer to receive subsidy payments the following (among other things) must be done/occur:

1. The farmer must complete extensive documents and disclose information about their individual farming operation.

2. The farmer must agree to grow certain crops and not farm certain parcels of their ground.

3. The farmer must buy crop insurance to protect against natural disaster.

These things give the gov't the ability to project production of commodities. Our government makes multi-year trade deals with other nations which is based on projected crop values vs. the value of the trade good received. If projections are inaccurate these trade deals could result in the US paying far more for the trade goods received than the actual cash value. Since farms are private business there is really no way to dictate what crops will or will not be produced and in what quantities without some sort of payment, any more than gov't can control what any other private business sells.

The result of no subsidies would be knee jerk instability in these commodities. If corn prices were low, the corn farmers lead by their trade groups would simply lower production to drive the price up resulting in the same income for less production, more dramatic year to year price fluctuation, dramatic shelf price fluctuation for food and potential huge taxpayer financed adjustments to complete trade deals.

The bottom line to me is we have 2 choices:

1. We allow subsidies to keep commodity prices relatively stable and predictable

2. We deal with farm cartels and accept dramatic year to year price fluctuation in virtually every trade commodity in our economy likely costing far more than the subsidies.

Recommended :kick: #1

and is still close to farming, I believe the following:

1. Subsidies should be a kind of price support. With $3.50 corn, farmers don't need subsidies. If corn is $1.50 like it was a few years ago, no one can stay in business very long and a subside is vital to farmers.

2. Total farm payments should be capped at a certain dollar amount.

3. We should not fight Europe and whoever else and insist on stoving what they call "Frankenfood" down their throats. The customer is always right and when you don't produce what they want, it makes no sense to bellyache about flagging exports. I blame the chemical companies and seed corn companies for this. You could also blame the government for not correcting this.

I believe other things, but I've got to get going.

That the price guarantees are not designed to make anyone rich and are not paid unless the price and/or yields are low. The yield protections are the reason for the crop insurance requirement for participation and only kick in when/if the crop insurance doesn't pay.

I don't quite understand your #2 as there are caps based on price.

That's what my farmer dad says anyway.

(appears to be Lincoln, Crete area)you are in the middle of corn country. I grew up 20 miles east of Grand Island NE. Most years the crops were great and the farmers thrived. On the occasional bad years, the communities pulled together, neighbors helped each other most farmers made it and those who didn't were largely to blame for their own failure. Then in the mid to late 70's there were a rash of failures and the rise of corporate farms. I believe that big corps were partially responsible for the failures along with the "oil crisis". This rash of failures and the pressure applied by the corps were the birth of the giant farm bills we have today. There had been farm programs since the 30's but it really wasn't until the 1977 farm bill that it became so inclusive as it is today. IIRC the 77 bill was the first to include the welfare commodity programs (cheese, peanut butter, etc) and crop protection.

Ask your dad about the voluminous paperwork and hoop jumping required of him to participate and it is clearly not welfare (as in something for nothing).

so pretty close to where you're from. I know Carter hurt farmers with grain embargos and Reagan REALLY hurt farmers. Hell, he had a stated policy of weeding out farmers. How would he have liked it if Eisenhower had a stated policy of weeding out shi++y actors in the 50's? Honestly, I think the government owes farmers subsidies for screwing up our business with harmful policies like under Carter and Raygun.

(This might be a good topic to cross post to the e/e forum)

when I did a search and there are no other recent threads about this bill. What other $288 Billion debate is completely ignored on DU? :shrug:

The climate crisis is going to affect the Southwest and West much more in the coming years regarding drought, and that is going to mean a tug of war between what is grown for food and what is used for biofuels. Also, water distribution in growing crops is going to have to be considered which could influence the amount of land that can be used sustainably and the amounts that can even be grown... and that affects price as well. You are correct to state that this does effect everybody on this planet, and for the life of me I don't know why more people don't seem as comcerned about this as should be.

but, if I understand correctly, the subsidies outlined in past farm bills took into consideration years of stats to determine that each year there will be x% crop loss or yield fluctuation nationally for each of the commodity crops effected. It allows them to quantify the overall cost of the farm bill and accurately predict yields. It would be interesting to know if there has been any trends emerge in the last 10 or so years which reflect climate change.

the family farm of her ex-husband in Montana. The old man and the boys ran a monthly tab in one of the many bars in town that averaged $1000.00
a month or better. Over one five year period the farm drew $658,000 in subsidies.
Or the ranch where my B-I-L hunts that will turn their cows in on land they are getting CRP subsidy for and claim "dudes left the gate open" if they're caught. They also take "dudes" out on those lands for guided antelope or deer hunts while drawing the payments.

I am not sure of all the regs on use of CRP but I believe the program has done more to conserve wildlife in my part of the country than all of the conservation programs combined. Prior to the CRP program farmers left no place for wildlife the cost of land combined with the value of the crops made it economically impossible. The approved CRP land cover is great for wild birds and other wildlife. In addition to the conservation aspect the land enrolled in the CRP program acts as a known reserve of farm ground which could be called into production if needed in the future. Again it is conservation through incentives, without incentives there is no reason to allow for wildlife outside of public lands.

I guess I am not making the connection between the bar bill and the OP but the $658k over 5 years undoubtedly is in relation to the amount of land and the value of the requests of the gov't. CRP is one of the programs frequently pointed to as welfare, "paying farmers not to farm". Using the CRP program as an example. If you own a retail store that is 5000 square feet. The government decides that for what ever reason it is beneficial to society if you only used 4500 square feet and left the other 500 empty. Now your income over the years for the 5000 sq ft has been $250k per year. What will it take for you to agree to leave the 500 sq ft empty? You certainly aren't going to do it for free are you?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just perspective.

**C.R.P. (Conservation Reserve Program) : a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that provides agricultural producers with annual rental payments and cost-share assistance for establishing protective cover on suitable farm property to protect and improve air, water, soil quality, and wildlife habitat. "Suitable" property is usually defined as being marginal for agricultural crops, and/or erodible.

http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/Extension/ssfor11.htm