Introduction: Before all of my friends and family who are in the agriculture industry (or related one) get all mad at me, hear me out. Read the whole thing. I support farmers and maybe would like to be a farmer myself. I am not blaming you at all, just the government. Towards the end of this post, I am hoping to propose some realistic options for the future of farming in America.
Brief History of Farm Subsidies in America: Farm subsidies were first created by the US Government in the Great Depression as an emergency relief mechanism that was supposed to go away after 5 years. However, 5 years later the subsidies were renewed and they have been renewed and expanded every 5 years since.
Why are farm subsidies still around if they are so bad? One reason for this is that farm bills are often passed with a large amount of legislation for food stamps and other positive agricultural programs in the same bill. Nobody wants to look bad voting against these things so they go along with it even though there are large amounts of farm subsidies in there. What better way to get the representative from the inner city to support farm subsides than by including welfare for many of his or her citizens? Another reason is that farmers and agribusinesses are great at lobbying and that most people don't care or know enough to lobby against farm subsidies. There is a lot of money in farming and agribusiness. It would take a lot of money to match their lobbying. A great example of this is the recent Initiative 522 in Washington state. The initiative was to force food producers to identify Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in their products. The vote was passing by a long shot until the junk food lobbyists stepped in and poured millions of advertising dollars against the bill. It failed. Can someone please tell me how this bill would have a negative affect on anything?
Why are farm subsidies bad? There are many reasons for this. I am going to start out with the one that I think is the worst: what crops are subsidized. The main crops that are subsidized are corn and soy. Neither of these crops, in their natural state, are anywhere near real, edible food. They won't become food until they are processed. The practice of processing these crops takes away any nutrition that they might have.
The government is subsidizing obesity. By subsidizing corn, they are subsidizing the production of the high fructose corn syrup and other sugars that are commonly found in fast food and junk food. They are making the foods that are the least nutritious but the most calorie dense and harmful the cheapest. Healthy foods don't stand a chance at the grocery store with the shopper that has a budget. The government has created a slanted playing field by creating artificially lower costs for junk food. I often hear or read the phrase "(insert your farming state here)'s farmers feed the world". They aren't feeding anybody. I dare the farmers that grow corn or soy to go out in their fields and take a bite out of their crops. Let's see how that tastes.
The government is making the rich richer. The farmers today that receive subsidies are the biggest farms that have survived all of the various issues our farmers have faced over the last century. They have eagerly gobbled up the land of their neighbors when their farms failed or when the farmer got too old and had no one to take over the farm. Due to a combination of the size of the farms today and the government practices to keep them alive, not many more farms will fail. Good for these survivors, but where is the risk for them? Farmers in the Midwest recently had one of the worst droughts in recent history and financially it was one of their best years. Does this make any sense? Farmers should have to shoulder some of the risk of their crops. Everyone in every other job has risks.
The consolidation of farms has given rise to the demise of small towns across the country but especially in the Midwest. Back when 160 acres was a decent sized farm, these towns flourished. Now when ten times that much land is average or even small, there aren't as many farmers to support the economies of these small towns.
Subsidies have encouraged farmers to pursue efficiency in growing crops like corn and soy. Efficiency sounds great but not when you are growing crops like corn and soy and not when doing so creates huge mono-cultures. Nature isn't supposed to be mono-cultures. Nature is diverse and self-sustaining. These mono-cultures encourage the growth of pests and disease and destroy our soil. Massive amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are used in order to keep these mono-cultures alive.
Many readers have heard of how bad feedlots are. Feedlots too, are subsidized by the government. Again, corn is artificially made cheaper and becomes the feed of choice for cattle. Cattle are infinitely more healthy and their meat more nutritious if they are grass fed as compared to feedlot cattle. Cattle are only able to handle the diets of feedlots for so long before they die.
Ethanol is also artificially cheaper because of subsidized corn. If not for these subsidies, ethanol would be an even more inefficient form of alternative energy and probably wouldn't be used at all.
Case Study: New Zealand
"In 1984 New Zealand's Labor government took the dramatic step of ending all farm subsidies, which then consisted of 30 separate production payments and export incentives. This was a truly striking policy action, because New Zealand's economy is roughly five times more dependent on farming than is the U.S. economy, measured by either output or employment. Subsidies in New Zealand accounted for more than 30 percent of the value of production before reform, somewhat higher than U.S. subsidies today. And New Zealand farming was marred by the same problems caused by U.S. subsidies, including overproduction, environmental degradation and inflated land prices."
NY Times Article
Possible Solutions/Outcomes:
Farmers should be weaned off of farm subsidies. Subsidies should decrease every year for 5 years so that farmers have time to adjust to a different type of farming. The money that was used for subsidies should be used instead to make sure that farmers don't go bankrupt during the 5 years and at the end of the 5 years, farmers will have adapted. While farm subsidies are just one small part of America's national debt, this will help that and will also help alleviate some problems with unemployment and health related issues.
Without farm subsidies, most farmers won't grow corn or soy anymore. They will grow real food and America will be much healthier because of it. Junk food and fast food will no longer be the cheapest, most convenient food on the market which will result in better choices being made by the consumer. The costs of health care and insurance will start to level off as Americans will be healthier.
Farmers will no longer need to farm thousands of acres to make a lot of money. They also will not be able to farm this many acres unless they are just grazing animals on them as the new norm for farming will be growing real good which is much more labor intensive. This will results in many more farmers, and many more farm jobs. Small town America, especially the Midwest, will be revived with a new influx of people and money.
No comments:
Post a Comment