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Please allow me to apologize. I am a farmer.
The farm bill embarrasses me by pointing out that under
normal circumstances it is difficult for me to make a living. I do not care for
the word “welfare.” I prefer the terms “pride,” “earn,” and “labor”. Yet the
crops I produce are subsidized. I must admit that my pride has suffered.
Growing food is an honorable occupation, one that ought to
demand respect. Sadly, almost every aspect of what I do has been called into
question. It was never my choice to be subsidized. I would prefer simply to be
profitable. But as the many special interests are juggled in the making of farm
policy, mine nearly always come in dead last.
For example deep inside the farm bill is a subsidy for
farmers who choose to plant seeds from one particular corporation. This is a large
corporation, Monsanto, one with substantial earnings and record profits. My
government has favored Monsanto by granting its customers a 14 percent savings
on crop insurance. Meanwhile, there is little for farmers who use techniques
that would conserve valuable resources like fuel and soil, or for reducing greenhouse
gases.
I regret that I must be blamed for the government deficit,
while Monsanto will benefit in its core business. Our government and the
companies it oversees are working together to create advantages that benefit
big farm businesses most. Farm numbers have declined as average farm size has
increased. That’s because payment limits have been virtually non-existent for
large farms that collect an ever increasing share of federal dollars.
The Bush
Administration proposes to limit subsidies according to income, but they would continue
to assist large farms in crowding smaller ones. Their position is that New
Yorkers who own acreages, and whose address may be on West 67th Street can’t
qualify. But those who garner ever larger land holdings at the expense of other
farmers can claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal payments from a physical
location in the Midwest. The farm bill is mistaken
not for funneling a tiny fraction of payments to a few wealthy urban
landowners. The problem is that it favors big business and denies opportunity
to rural Americans while doing very little to assure real food security.
The phrase “family farm” is probably one of the most abused
of expressions, but family farms do exist. I live and work on the very same one
where my parents worked. As time goes by however, we seem to survive only at
the pleasure of government. In recent years, the payments that family farms
collected were our take-home pay. Subsidies constituted our net income. Through
the farm bill we do an exceptional job of supplying markets with raw materials
for what they cost to produce, but the law does little to assure profits.
Thanks
to the farm bill, we’ve received a minimum wage on grain prices. Prices today
are much higher, but historically our living has come from farm programs. I’m
sorry it hasn’t been different.
Small farms and rural America are being financially squeezed
in every possible way. The farm bills passed by the House and Senate will do
little to keep grain farms afloat if markets should suddenly decline. We are
criticized for accepting government support as prices seem to rise every day
even though expanding oil prices are herding us into a dead end created by
increasing costs of production. We are in direct competition with the rest of
the world for fertilizer, and land prices climb with each new farm sale. Increasingly
many of the pesticides we use are sourced from China. Meanwhile, we are more
reliant than ever before on a marketplace that has never shown mercy and on
leaders who have no sympathy for the struggles of small farms or rural
communities
Without a better farm bill, one that levels the playing
field for small family farms, then someday soon there may be no one left who
will apologize.
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These elements have declared economic war on the family farm, middle America and consumers around the world. Yet, their only victory has been made possible by their having taken over our political machinery (especially the U.S. Executive branch) and then using it against us.
This is certainly NOT the government I knew forty years ago.