Mountains of Corn and a Sea of Subsidies

[Pan]

Even as the Bush administration tries to persuade member nations of the World Trade Organization that it is serious about trimming agricultural subsidies, federal spending on farm payments is closing in on the record of $22.9 billion set in 2000[...]

[on the next page:]

The 2.7-million-bushel pile[...]is too big to cover, since there are no walls to tie a tarp to. For that one, the company can only pray for dry conditions while it tries to find buyers for the corn. "So far," Mr. Fray said, "we have dodged a bullet."

Failing that, West Central could always build a ski lift on the hill.

Have a look at the rest of this New York Times article.

Can anyone explain how this makes any sense, other than for a small number of American farmers, one of whom is quoted as saying that many would like to see the price of corn go to zero in order to receive increased subsidy payments? It's so wasteful.

[jsolomon]

Define small number.

[Shalmanese]

It's a massive boondoggle. Nearly all the farm subsidies go to a few, select large producers who then use this money for intense lobbying and PR to continue the subsidies. Meanwhile, the average American (and european) consumer has images of idyllic family farms and the need to keep food supplies secure.

Farm subsidies have probably one of the most distorting effects on world trade and if the western world had any scruples, they would get rid of them immediately.

FTR: Europe is a lot worse on subsidies that the US and seems to be more stubborn about keeping them.

[jsolomon]

Can anyone explain how this makes any sense, other than for a small number of American farmers, one of whom is quoted as saying that many would like to see the price of corn go to zero in order to receive increased subsidy payments? It's so wasteful.

←

It also makes sense for the extremely larger number of smaller farms that need the subsidy to put food on their own tables. The farm subsidy programs are not for farmers to get rich. The farm subsidy programs are for the ~1,000,000 (give or take a few hundred thousand) to stay employed.

It would be very devastating to the U.S. if within one year 90% or more of the farmers were so far in hock that their land, equipment, houses, and crops got repossessed by the bank. We wouldn't be able to generate that many new jobs in a year, and we would have some very, very angry people on our hands who would want answers, shelter, and food.

The simplest answer is that there are farm subsidies for numerous reasons, but one reason why we have them at all is that we simply can't handle the sheer number of unemployed if our farm economy were to tank (which it most certainly would without farm subsidies, especially with fuel costs as they were this year).

The funny thing is, the corn that they are speaking of is not "food grade". So it's not directly entering our food supply. It'll go toward industry such as making ethanol, fructose corn syrup, starch production, and other "manufactured" or "value-added" agricultural commodities.

[jsolomon]

It's a massive boondoggle. Nearly all the farm subsidies go to a few, select large producers who then use this money for intense lobbying and PR to continue the subsidies. Meanwhile, the average American (and european) consumer has images of idyllic family farms and the need to keep food supplies secure.

←

That's really unfair. I know personally several of the "select large producers who then use this money for intense lobbying and PR to continue the subsidies".

As far as I know--and I know a lot about one--they give more of this money to the church than they do to the political process. For the most part, they are still family farms that have become large through careful management and luck. What is large? Well, 8 employees, 6 who are permanent, and 2 who help during planting and harvest.

Farmers aren't out to screw people. And, it is very unfair of people to think this way.

[Busboy]

The most important reason we have massive corn subsidies -- and a boondoggle ethanol program -- is that Iowa is a key state in the presidential nomination process.

According to this website, about 850,000 farmers pocketed corn subsidies from Uncle Sugar (corn sugar, in this case) and 72% of all subsidies (includes fiber, I think) go to the biggest 10% of farmers, ie "agribusiness." 60% of farms get nothing.

Regardless of whether or not farmers should be elegible for billions of dollars in subsidies while, say, gas station owners and booksellers are not, running a program in such a way that rewards overproduction and thus pushes subsidy payments up even higher is perverse and wrong.

In addition to the expense, subsidies distort land use decisions -- why grow low pesticide arugula (or whatever) when you can get a de facto welfare payment for growing corn, and not have to worry about the weather. In addition, corn and other agricultural subsidies depress prices worlkdwide, hitting impoverished nations, in which agriculture is a much larger portion of the economy, particularly hard. Farmers forced off their land then become fodder for low-wage factories (the kind the lure U.S. manufacturers offshore) or they show up as illegals in the U.S.

Finally, the argument that we should pay farmers not to look for work off the farm is specious. Maybe we should flip GM a couple of billion to help them keep auto workers on the assembly line, or write checks to all those small mills in the rural south that are shutting down due to foreign competition.

Small farms have a strong emotional hold on Americans. But they're becoming a damn expensive habit. And, too often, small family farmes are just a front for the much huger operations that rake in the real money.

[jsolomon]

Finally, the argument that we should pay farmers not to look for work off the farm is specious. 

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I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't. I'm saying that we DO. That is a main reason for farm subsidies being as they are.

And, too often, small family farmes are just a front for the much huger operations that rake in the real money.

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Are you saying that out of firsthand knowledge? I have a general understanding of how many farms work it, but I think your view is somewhat distorted.

[Busboy]

Finally, the argument that we should pay farmers not to look for work off the farm is specious. 

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I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't. I'm saying that we DO. That is a main reason for farm subsidies being as they are.

And, too often, small family farmes are just a front for the much huger operations that rake in the real money.

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Are you saying that out of firsthand knowledge? I have a general understanding of how many farms work it, but I think your view is somewhat distorted.

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60% of gfarms get no subsidies. 10% of the remaining farms -- 4% of all farms -- get 72% of the subsidy. I'm not saying that family farms are fronts in a money-laundering sense, but in the sense that huge operations invoke the image of the family farm as a front for their battle for billions of dollars in subsidies.

Check out this chart to see what percentage of my tax dollars went to small farms and what percentage went to spreads raking in between 50 thousand and $14 million in subsidies alone -- while remembering that 67% (in 2004) of farmers made it through the year without a dime. Without arguing agricultural subsidies as a whole, the system as it stands now is indefensible.

[russ parsons]

american agricultural policy is a wonderful topic for discussion, but i think it's important to remember that subsidies DO NOT go to the people who grow the fruits and vegetables that we eat. field corn, sugar, cotton, wheat ... that's what draws the money. farmers who grow peaches and tomatoes have to figure it out for themselves.

[Carrot Top]

This is surely a difficult thing to sort out and understand.

Heavily laden with the worst sorts of bureaucratic jumbles that have double-jumbled themselves into a bad macrame over the years that is impossible to unknot. . .requiring a good up-to-date knowledge of local, national, and global economics to understand what possiblities and dangers do or do not exist in the program or in ending it or in altering it. . .knowledge of farmed food production. . .knowledge of agribusiness and knowledge of the real-life workings of small farms. . .

Most Americans across the country that I've heard voice opinion on this subject are *against* the subsidies. It sort of embarrasses them, this idea of subsidy. It seems almost Socialist in shape, un-American.

But I don't think that *most* Americans know the reality of where our food *does* come from (when it comes from American farms). There is sort of an idea that the Dust Bowl ruined the small farmer for good, for the most part. Of course - this is what we are taught in our suburban and city and rural schools.

But the kids in the rural schools look at the pages where this is written that there are no longer small farms and screw up their faces, trying to make the words change into something different by the sheer act of imaginative will upon the page. Because it looks like fiction, to them. They know that there are still small farms, because they live on them. Their families survive (often to not-too-great financial rewards) on these farms. Their friends and their community all live this same life, too.

The true "small farm" still exists, and in greater numbers than those living in crowded places can imagine.

Do these people get subsidies? Some yes, some no. As jsolomon said, "What is small?" A lot, I think, depends on those words. And as russ said - the subsidies go to growers of certain crops - again, knowledge of how these farms operate, understanding their budgets and their challenges (weather and seasonality?) would seem to be vital before one could really speak with knowledge of the level of correctness that exists in the way the things *are* being done.

The emotional content that sits heavy and quiet in a mountain of corn, though, when we know that hunger resides in other places, that it resides in the bloated stomachs of babies approaching death from malnutrition or starvation in their mother's bone-thin arms, is tremendous. As it should be.

And lord knows nobody loves a lobbyist.

It would be great if *those in the know* could do something better and finer about this conundrum which has existed throughout time in every place in different guises.

Will they? Will the exhausting attempt be made to unravel the twisted macrame?

I don't know. But this is America, and we are much given to hope.

[jsolomon]

the system as it stands now is indefensible.

←

I'm not arguing that.

But, I think you're making an apples and oranges comparison. Subsidy programs are generally for cash crops. Sugar, corn, rice, wheat, peanuts, cotton, beans, to some extent, milk.

What is the range of things that farms as a broad group raise? Fruits, vegetables, meats, herbs, spices... and the list goes on.

Let's look at tomatoes. According to USDA resources tomatoes are in the neighborhood of $.20 to $.70 per pound.

If you look at corn, to have a price of $.20 to $.70 per pound you would have bushel prices of 56 times that. $11.20 to $39.20 Hell, if corn farmers got $3 per bushel, just a nickel a pound, they'd be tickled pink.

You're blaming the corn farmers for overproducing and then whining to Uncle Sam that they can't make it, but you're not looking at the barrel the corn farmers are over, so you're making really illogical arguments about who's to blame and why. It's really unfortunate that corn farmers are locked in to overproducing the way the are, but the subsidies are on a bushel basis, so they have to produce to make their loan payments, which just drives the price down. They aren't the ones who made the rules to the game, but they are the ones who feed their families based on the subsidy payments.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your shock and dismay at the disparity of payments, but you're mis-categorizing who gets many of the payments and why. Live in cash crop country for a while and work with the cash crop people and understand the subsidy systems before you go decrying what is wrong and why because you are mis-casting your arguments (and the NY Times is grandly oversimplifying the system).

[russ parsons]

jsolomon, i admire your passion and respect your point. but i do find it interesting that you identify those people as "corn farmers." in california, where i have some familiarity with agriculture (and which grows about 60% of the fruits and vegetables consumed in america), farmers have had to give up that traditional identification with one crop, indeed, with the traditional ways of doing business. without subsidies, the fruit and vegetable market is becoming more and more clearly divided between the big guys who can profit from economies of scale, and little guys who have to get creative--direct marketing through farmers markets, etc., growing of niche specialty crops, etc. the old days of a small fruit farmer growing what has "always been grown here" and then trucking it down to the packing shed and throwing in with the big boys is over. is there a structural impediment that would prohibit "corn farmers" from doing similar things?

certainly, change is uncomfortable. in fact, it's damned hard (you're talking to a lifelong employee of a "dinosaur industry" here). but sometimes it is inevitable.

i do find it interesting that, as far as i know, european crop subsidies also go to fruit and vegetable farmers and especially to those growing traditional crops.

[jsolomon]

In a lot of cases in Nebraska, the problem is lack of land quality, and lack of weather compatibility.

California, at least in the spots where the majority of the vegetables and fruits you are talking about, has much nicer weather than a place described as "The Great American Desert" which swings between 105F in the summer and -30F in the winter.

The Sandhills here aren't even high enough quality to support corn, wheat, or beans. Just grass that is grazed by cattle, and a few sheep and bison.

There are also social barriers. The farmers here are generally intelligent and hard-working, but they are also hide-bound. Unfortunately, so are the bankers. A farmer going to his banker to say "Corn is too damned low, give me a loan so I can turn my corn into oyster mushrooms, or shitakes" is going to not get the loan.

The one set of non-hobby farmers I know in the area doing "alternative" agriculture is a sheep dairy that sells half of the milk to New York to a cheese-maker there, and the other half gets turned into cosmetics.

The funny thing about your comments, russ parsons, is that 25 years ago, all of the corn farmers I'm talking about were diversified. They all had cattle, pigs, wheat, soybeans, and corn. But, if you're talking about low-price commidity cash crops like $2 bushel corn or $50 /ctwt pork, you either make your money up in volume, or you get out. Fruits and vegetables get sold at a much higher price which makes diversification easier, it also makes payoffs of investments faster.

I'll tell you the one thing about most of this that really, really gets under my skin. I'm not directing it at any one person on eG, though.

When the discussion comes back to farming in general, it seems like people go back to thinking about their garden, and how easy it was to grow those tomatoes, or their sweet corn, or peppers. But, the economy of doing it on a garden scale is very skewed from a "commercial" production scale. Farmers, these high school, and occasionally college educated people, are thrown into the travails of these markets where people get PhD's trying to figure out what's going to happen. These farmers are really doing quite a lot more than we can ask of them.

And, finally, what kind of unfeeling inhuman clod would want to take the money away from a generally kind, honest worker who puts in over 100 hours a week when called on for either a low salary (farm owner) or an exempt hourly wage (farm worker)? Really? That's just cold-hearted. Those people work their asses off to early graves, and the thanks we give them is "can't you change"? Feh.

[russ parsons]

jsolomon, i certainly hope that i didn't come across hard-hearted in my reply. i have been covering agriculture for almost 20 years. some of my best friends ... but i have to confess that as irked as i get by people who have never seen a farm theorizing about how things should be done better, i also object to farmers holding themselves out as somehow they should get a pass from the modern world.

change is inevitable. ask the steelworkers. ask the lumbermen. ask the cattle ranchers. to expect that somehow you are exempted from participating in history because, by god, you grow corn strikes me as dangerously naive (except, of course, when you can convince somebody else to pay so you don't have to ... then i guess it's very smart).

you are so right that farmers and bankers are hidebound. my god. and so are supermarket managers and produce marketers. when i started covering farmers markets as an alternative form of ag back in the mid-80s, mainstream farmers and mainstream retail both reacted as if it was airy-fairy hippie stuff. they would just laugh and spit. Well guess what? today you can find produce grown by farmers market farmers at our local high-end grocery stores. and at very good prices.

i remember a story i did 10 or 15 years ago when the tomato industry here was facing a tremendous challenge. farmers were flat pissed off that they couldn't just keep growing the same mature-greens that they'd made good money on for the last couple of decades. what really forced the issue was when they saw greenhouse tomatoes from canada selling for 2 and 3 times what they were getting. now, it seems, there's almost an arms race among farmers and marketers to figure out what the next hot new retail tomato is going to be--two years ago it was heirlooms in the supermarket; this summer it was a half-dozen different types of grape and cherry tomatoes. all of them selling for many multiples of what standard tomatoes get.

certainly, i'm not suggesting farmers markets as the solution for every ag problem--california is uniquely situated in that we have a great growing area that is convenient to two major metropolitan areas. but i am saying that farmers need to get a little (dreaded word) "entrepreneurial". and that if they don't, they shouldn't depend on my tax dollars to shore them up indefinitely.

[Chris Amirault]

i remember a story i did 10 or 15 years ago when the tomato industry here was facing a tremendous challenge. farmers were flat pissed off that they couldn't just keep growing the same mature-greens that they'd made good money on for the last couple of decades. what really forced the issue was when they saw greenhouse tomatoes from canada selling for 2 and 3 times what they were getting. now, it seems, there's almost an arms race among farmers and marketers to figure out what the next hot new retail tomato is going to be--two years ago it was heirlooms in the supermarket; this summer it was a half-dozen different types of grape and cherry tomatoes. all of them selling for many multiples of what standard tomatoes get.

←

Good points. Reminds me about a conversation I had with my ex-brother-in-law about 15-18 years ago about his agribusiness consulting. He explained to me, in great and fascinating detail, why I would never, ever eat a tomato that tasted like a tomato if I had purchased it from a supermarket. Oops.

[jsolomon]

jsolomon, i certainly hope that i didn't come across hard-hearted in my reply.

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Certainly not, I was on a roll and I didn't want to stop until I blew off the steam I needed to.

I also completely agree with you on the change is inevitable point. I think you'll agree with me on the farm subsidy programs that they generally try to shoehorn all agriculture (or at least subsidized agriculture) into a theoretical treatment that fits no area of the nation, and there are a lot of different climates, subclimates, and microclimates to go over, ditto crops.

Whenever I speak with my father about the sorts of hoops that are being jumped through this year to make sure that his farm is eligible, I feel like I'm reading those bizarre English -> Chinese -> English translations of classical literature. And then, after having my sensibilities abused, I hear people blaming the farmers for these programs.

That's like people blaming the Jews for the Holocaust.

Where you say that hidebound farmers need to be more entreprenuerial, I agree with you 100%. My mushroom growing example came from a suggestion I gave to a high school classmate about what to do with his $1.50 corn.

I keep scratching my head trying to come up with alternative crops--especially ones that won't require a nearly complete retooling of the major equipment of a farm. But, it's damned difficult. That, and I have things like my own life to live, so I don't spend uncounted hours poring over different useful plant types to figure out what to use.

But, I'm still born and bred from a farm, and I will defend my background tooth and nail. I learned a lot of great lessons from being a farm kid, and I'm not going to do them a dishonor.

[Shalmanese]

That's like people blaming the Jews for the Holocaust.

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Congratulations, You lose!

[Carrot Top]

I dunno.

They say that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Perhaps.

But a "law" created by a man based upon studies of man and things does not always an accurate reality make, even if it *is* posted in The Great Wilkipedia.

(An online reference. "Virtual".)

Let's hear some more about that real hay, jsolomon, and all that goes with it. Heh.

Seriously - no matter how the words hit the page here there's a lot we can learn, I think.

Edited November 10, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

Even as the Bush administration tries to persuade member nations of the World Trade Organization that it is serious about trimming agricultural subsidies, federal spending on farm payments is closing in on the record of $22.9 billion set in 2000[...]

[on the next page:]

The 2.7-million-bushel pile[...]is too big to cover, since there are no walls to tie a tarp to. For that one, the company can only pray for dry conditions while it tries to find buyers for the corn. "So far," Mr. Fray said, "we have dodged a bullet."

Failing that, West Central could always build a ski lift on the hill.

Have a look at the rest of this New York Times article.

Can anyone explain how this makes any sense, other than for a small number of American farmers, one of whom is quoted as saying that many would like to see the price of corn go to zero in order to receive increased subsidy payments? It's so wasteful.

←

What were the specific forms of waste that you were speaking of, Michael?

Great topic.

[Pan]

Even as the Bush administration tries to persuade member nations of the World Trade Organization that it is serious about trimming agricultural subsidies, federal spending on farm payments is closing in on the record of $22.9 billion set in 2000[...]

[on the next page:]

The 2.7-million-bushel pile[...]is too big to cover, since there are no walls to tie a tarp to. For that one, the company can only pray for dry conditions while it tries to find buyers for the corn. "So far," Mr. Fray said, "we have dodged a bullet."

Failing that, West Central could always build a ski lift on the hill.

Have a look at the rest of this New York Times article.

Can anyone explain how this makes any sense, other than for a small number of American farmers, one of whom is quoted as saying that many would like to see the price of corn go to zero in order to receive increased subsidy payments? It's so wasteful.

←

What were the specific forms of waste that you were speaking of, Michael?

Great topic.

←

Yeah, it's generating a lot of discussion, isn't it?

The waste is that there are mountains of corn liable to rot in the fields, and also that farmers are being paid to grow corn to incredible excess.

jsolomon, was there a group of well-connected Jews in Berlin lobbying the Reichstag to maintain funding for the death trains?

I appreciate the rest of your points, though, even if I see things differently, given my vantage point. Farmers in danger of foreclosure arguably should have been bailed out around the same time that Chrysler was, but being paid to be inefficient and create mountains of corn, as described in the article, to me is a form of legalized corruption. And no, I'm not an expert on agriculture; I'm a subsidizer.

Edited November 10, 2005 by Pan (log)

[jsolomon]

Are there a bunch of well-connected corn farmers that you can show me? The subsidies continue so that corn can be used as political leverage, and to keep several hundred thousand people from all being out of work in the same year--something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression, if my research is correct.

Also, I don't understand what you mean by "paid to be inefficient" when there is a surfeit of grain. They are too efficient, actually. Even between the mid-'80's when most farms un-diversified to now, corn yields per acre in my area have come significantly higher. I think you're using some definition of "inefficient" that I'm unfamiliar with.

And, when you're speaking of them being bailed out about the time of Chrysler, it's not a one-time thing, and it won't be until there is either better price equity for corn, or there is a better set of crops for them to grow, i.e. crops suited to their climate that are used in that large of an amount.

Essentially what the subsidy is meant for is to help the farmer pay the loan that he took out on the crop that year. So, the next year rolls around, and the farmer has to take out a loan for this next year's crop, and get a subsidy payment to pay off that loan. Think "Company Town" or "Company Store" from the mining days, and you'll be more correct on how the economics work.

Edited November 10, 2005 by jsolomon (log)

[Pan]

Are there a bunch of well-connected corn farmers that you can show me?

←

Do you deny that the agricultural lobby is one of the most influential and effective lobbies in Washington? How effective was the Jewish lobby in Nazi Germany? And how badly have corn farmers been victimized by the oppression of getting money from the government in the form of subsidies that consumers are funding?

The subsidies continue so that corn can be used as political leverage, and to keep several hundred thousand people from all being out of work in the same year--something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression, if my research is correct.

←

I'll defer to your knowledge, but within my lifetime, there was a period when lots of small farmers lost their farms, and in many cases their houses, etc.

Also, I don't understand what you mean by "paid to be inefficient" when there is a surfeit of grain.  They are too efficient, actually.  Even between the mid-'80's when most farms un-diversified to now, corn yields per acre in my area have come significantly higher.  I think you're using some definition of "inefficient" that I'm unfamiliar with.

←

Point well taken. One could well say that they were too efficient this year.

And, when you're speaking of them being bailed out about the time of Chrysler, it's not a one-time thing, and it won't be until there is either better price equity for corn, or there is a better set of crops for them to grow, i.e. crops suited to their climate that are used in that large of an amount.

Essentially what the subsidy is meant for is to help the farmer pay the loan that he took out on the crop that year.  So, the next year rolls around, and the farmer has to take out a loan for this next year's crop, and get a subsidy payment to pay off that loan.  Think "Company Town" or "Company Store" from the mining days, and you'll be more correct on how the economics work.

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So why didn't that help the small farmers whose farms were foreclosed because of the sudden depression (recession, whatever) during the Reagan years?

It seems to me that big businesses can absorb losses to a fair degree, and that it makes more sense to provide payments based on individual need than to have a system that encourages overproduction and waste.

[cdh]

Jsolomon- Could you explain the position of behemoth corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland? I've always been under the impression that they own a lot of productive farmland which is managed in a corporate manner leading to the references to them as "agribusiness".

If my impression is right, aren't they a fine example of the sort of entities that don't deserve the subsidies they're getting?

[jsolomon]

Are there a bunch of well-connected corn farmers that you can show me?

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Do you deny that the agricultural lobby is one of the most influential and effective lobbies in Washington?

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Wholeheartedly and completely. If the agricultural lobby were anywhere near as effective as you say there would be 2 things you would notice.

1: Farm programs wouldn't leave everyone scratching their heads saying "What the fuck is happening this year?"

2: Farm programs would be as silent as tax breaks given to the private defense contractor industry, or large businesses like General Electric.

The "farm lobby" that you speak of is not nearly as well organized as you seem to be implying. There is a corn lobby, soybean lobby, wheat lobby, pork lobby, mutton lobby, beef lobby... ad nauseum, but do you think they actually work together effectively? If they attempted to be truly organized like you think they are, they would infight every bit as bad as deans at a University. Ranchers and farmers have fundamental differences in thinking. Corn farmers and bean farmers have fundamental differences in thinking. Edible and industrial farmers have fundamental differences in thinking. Do you see where I'm heading with this?

How effective was the Jewish lobby in Nazi Germany? And how badly have corn farmers been victimized by the oppression of getting money from the government in the form of subsidies that consumers are funding?

←

The point of the analogy that you are so deftly ignoring is that farmers are very nearly completely powerless. They may control the means of production, but there are so many that are so different that there is very little they can do effectively as spread out as they are.

The subsidies continue so that corn can be used as political leverage, and to keep several hundred thousand people from all being out of work in the same year--something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression, if my research is correct.

←

I'll defer to your knowledge, but within my lifetime, there was a period when lots of small farmers lost their farms, and in many cases their houses, etc.

←

That time was in my lifetime, too. But what you're talking about is a significantly smaller number of farmers over a significantly longer period of time. Certainly it was several tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers, possibly even a couple of hundred-thousand, but this era that you are speaking of was actually over a period of about 15 years.

Without these subsidies, I would predict that 80% or more of the farmers would be foreclosed on. The better part of a million people.

That's a lot no matter how you cut it. More than the textile industry has lost. More than any one sector has lost that I can think of. That's a lot of out of work people.

So why didn't that help the small farmers whose farms were foreclosed because of the sudden depression (recession, whatever) during the Reagan years?

It seems to me that big businesses can absorb losses to a fair degree, and that it makes more sense to provide payments based on individual need than to have a system that encourages overproduction and waste.

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There are a superbly large number of reasons why it didn't help some of these small farmers. Remember, the government is very poor at being proactive, so a lot of them lost the farm before the government even recognized what was happening. Many others were beyond help by that point.

I find it interesting that you keep thinking that this is all a concerted effort by all of these people. Are you that suspicious of your cheap food? This is your free market at work, here.

[jsolomon]

Jsolomon-  Could you explain the position of behemoth corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland?  I've always been under the impression that they own a lot of productive farmland which is managed in a corporate manner leading to the references to them as "agribusiness".

If my impression is right, aren't they a fine example of the sort of entities that don't deserve the subsidies they're getting?

←

The best information that I can give you is that they don't seem to own a lot of productive farmland in Nebraska.

They contract with a lot of farmers, and they have many operations in Nebraska, but to my knowledge, they don't own much, if any, farmland here--research land exempted. ConAgra would be another large one I would place under that.

The position of those behemoths (who usually get really good tax incentives from states to create jobs by building plants) is that they really appreciate the low price they have to pay for agricultural raw materials that they can turn into much higher-priced products.

Believe me, when it comes to Kelloggs, that's not $2.49 worth of corn in your corn flakes. I think the largest amount of the price goes to advertising.

But, we're still raking farmers over the coals.