The Dollar Stretcher

I agree. Gas and food prices are squeezing everyone! It's especially hard now because just when I realized I had to cut back, it is darn near impossible.

I don't know where then end is, I don't see much hope?  How far will it go and will it stay like this?

Nervous!

Er, beg pardon, but what about the increases in food stamp benefits for millions of Americans?  How about the increased funding for food banks and other emergency food distributors?  How about the healthy-snack program for students?

It's certainly an oversimplification to claim that the farm bill caters to "special interests" (agribusiness) while deliberately ignoring the problems of ordinary working Americans.  Of the bill's $307 billion price tag (over five years), only $35 billion is for commodity programs such as crop subsidies.  About $209 billion, by contrast, is for programs to feed the poor.

So no, quite frankly, I'm not prepared to "throw the bums out" just for supporting this bill.  Many of those who voted for it, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, acknowledged that it was flawed but couldn't bring themselves to oppose it when it contained so many important provisions that could help Americans in need.  I certainly can't condemn that decision.

(Source: "Reaching Well Beyond the Farm," New York Times, May 20, 2008: www.nytimes.com/.../20farm.html)

Hi,

I just wanted to do a little "rebuttal" from a farmer about your farm bill comments.  My family has a small fresh produce farm - and we do not get any of the "subsidies" you mention.  But I do understand the system a bit.  The media, I know, always has a hey-day every time the farm bill comes up for reallocation.  So the public gets the idea that a few big men in suits sitting in a high rise smoking cigars are getting all the farm bill money.  OK, there may be a few, but most farmers getting help from Uncle Sam are actually out in the fields every day working on the farm.

The $1.5 million cutoff per couple is gross income, not profit.  For instance, a dairy with about 500 or fewer milking cattle would make this amount in a year - depending on prices to the farmer (this is not a very large dairy).  Margins (gross income minus expenses) in farming are razor thin (that's why farms have gotten bigger, to take advantage of a larger scale.)   Fuel prices are high, and food/feed production is a heavy user of fuels.  It's hard to find workers willing to do farm work, so they have the beaurocracy of the migrant worker programs.  Then let's talk about weather - freezing, drought, tornadoes, hail, wind, hurricanes, floods, lack of irrigation water, the list goes on.

Most of the money is going to just a few owners, because the majority of farms in the US today are very small.  The USDA uses $2,500 gross income from farming to qualify a business as a "farm".  Most of the small farms are run by people part time on small acreage, who have full time jobs off the farm.  They're not trying to make a living from the farm, so they are not assuming much risk.  The large farms are assuming a huge amount of risk, from the hazards of weather, sudden foreign trade embargos, questionable labor availability, etc.  

The corn grown for ethanol is not the same kind of corn grown for humans to eat.  Ethanol production of corn takes production away from animal feed, so higher meat prices could be attributed (in part) to conversion of corn production from feed to ethanol.  It's basically more expensive to feed cattle now.

A lot of the "subsidies" listed are actually in the form of insurance for the farmers.  They take out (pay for) insurance policies through the USDA (because no self-respecting insurance agent will go near high risk farming) to insure their crops each year.  You don't get near the actual value of the crop if it actually fails, only about 60-70%, depending on the level of coverage you choose.  But you still have to pay 100% of your bills.

I agree, tacking on unrelated items to the bill is a little shady, but forestry is definitely related to farming - a large portion of our farmland is actually forested pasture land, and farmers are often wonderful stewards of forest land.  I know horse racing sounds unrelated too, but it's a way for many farms to be able to remain as open space, rather than be gobbled up by housing developments.  (Especially near the Baltimore/Washington corridor in my state).

Honestly, we have had it too easy as consumers in the U.S.  We only spend about 10% of our income on food.  There are countries in Asia where it's as high as 70%.  Every other industry pushes to keep our food prices low - if people spend too much on food - which they have to buy, they won't have enough money to buy cars and take vacations and such.  The actual farmer doesn't receive much of each dollar you spend on your food. This website says it nicely:   www.alfafarmers.org/.../food_dollar.phtml  

I can think of no other homeland security threat than for us to not produce enough food in our country for our population.  Having to depend on China for our food?  Now that's scary.  Without subsidies and other help from the government, who in their right mind would want to start a business where you're at the whim of nature every single day, don't set your own prices, have to pay to store then ship your product to the distributor, do hard labor from sunup to sundown (and beyond), have more environmental regulations to keep track of each year, and barely scrape by at the end of the year?  

I just wanted to maybe shed some light.  I know it's not a perfect system, but if you look at other countries, our Farm Bill does not subsidize our farmers nearly as much (despite what those countries say publically).  

Thanks for a wonderful email newsletter, and keep up the good work.

It seems as if a lot of middle class citizens are going to need food stamps.  It seems that the U.S.  is the only country that has a food stamp program.  Most people are growing vegetable gardens in their back yards to help beat the rise of food prices.  I plan on doing the same.  Avoiding waste is essential.  I read somewhere that the farmers  will discard the produce that they don't sell at the farmer's markets.  Why don't they donate them to food pantries and soup kitchens.  It will make more sense than making waste.  

Regarding leftover produce at farmers markets:

Many farmers do donate to pantries, but many more pantries don't want food they have to "prepare"  because they don't have the manpower to wash and clean the produce.

And just because it is discarded, doesn't mean the produce is wasted.  We compost all our leftovers (after giving what we can to neighbors and family each week).  The compost adds nutrients and organic matter to our soils, making a better growing environment.

There are "food stamps" all over the world, especially in poor countries.  When the poverty is widespread, governments will subsidize the cost of bread  so it's affordable to poor people.

Also, @deberry, there *is* a futures market that's supposed to reduce risk.