Farmer bailout in the works

[her209]

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...-crop-insurance-subsidies-for-wealthy-farmers

Passed by a 2-1 margin, the Senate's $498 billion five-year farm bill would compensate growers when revenue from a crop falls, rather than prop up prices.

...

Grain and soybean growers would qualify for federal payments when revenue from a crop is from 11 to 21 percent below normal. Crop insurance would cover deeper losses.

Shouldn't the free market dictate what crops are grown?

 

[EagleKeeper]

to an extent it does;

However, the farm bills establish a floor so a farm can try again to provided needed produce the next year in the event of a failure.

otherwise 2-3 bad years back to back could destroy the farms and it could take 5-10 years to potentially recover. the two years after the failures, the amount of farms would shut down and then there wold be not enough crops able to be planted.
That would then cripple the dependent markets for a few more years. ripple effect.

 

[BoomerD]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

 

[PokerGuy]

Farming is an industry where our national security interests have to be taken into account. It is a critical industry for the entire nation, and changes take a relatively long time to make. Thus, there needs to be a policy in place to ensure that regardless of the prices set by supply and demand in the market, the needs of the country are met. That's exactly what they're doing when they set price buffers etc.

 

[werepossum]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

This, exactly. Such payments need to taper off and die as the entity becomes larger. I have absolutely no problem using tax money to keep in business the farmer with a few hundred acres who is afflicted by floods or drought. I have a huge problem using tax money to compensate a huge agricorp for losing a few million in one spot when it might well have concurrently earned billions on other holdings. Any problem so widespread as to threaten a major agricorp should be dealt with as a one-time deal, not an on-going program which the agricorps are sure to game for profit. Tax money should be used for keeping essential industries (like farming) in business, not for guaranteeing a certain level of profit.

 

[michal1980]

If we do this, why cant it be balanced out or funded by having a price ceiling. IE if the price of those grains covered by this go up by 11-21% over the normal price that money goes to fund this 'dry weather' fund?

 

[her209]

If we do this, why cant it be balanced out or funded by having a price ceiling. IE if the price of those grains covered by this go up by 11-21% over the normal price that money goes to fund this 'dry weather' fund?

Privatized profits, socialized losses.

 

[Anarchist420]

How much tax payer money does the farming industry need for fuck's sake?

 

[Genx87]

Farming is an industry where our national security interests have to be taken into account. It is a critical industry for the entire nation, and changes take a relatively long time to make. Thus, there needs to be a policy in place to ensure that regardless of the prices set by supply and demand in the market, the needs of the country are met. That's exactly what they're doing when they set price buffers etc.

Every industry in our country can fall under that definition and thus qualify for bailout money.

 

[MovingTarget]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

This. These types of subsidies/benefits are designed for and pitched for the family farms in America. The majority of the actual benefit goes to anything but. There needs to be restricitons on who is eligible based on size/ownership of farms.

 

[werepossum]

If we do this, why cant it be balanced out or funded by having a price ceiling. IE if the price of those grains covered by this go up by 11-21% over the normal price that money goes to fund this 'dry weather' fund?

Good point.

 

[Infohawk]

Farming is an industry where our national security interests have to be taken into account.

Yes.

It's bad enough this country is being deindustrialized. You can't control world affairs or the global economy, but you can make sure that people are producing food in the US. We should make sure that's always the case even if it means market intervention.

 

[waggy]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

THIS

family farmers really don't make much. They have to compete with huge corporate owned farms.

 

[Theb]

I like this a lot better than the current 'how many acres do you have? Here is your check.' program. It's a move in the right direction.

If we do this, why cant it be balanced out or funded by having a price ceiling. IE if the price of those grains covered by this go up by 11-21% over the normal price that money goes to fund this 'dry weather' fund?

I would like this even better, even though the surplus fund would end up being raided to build tanks for welfare recipients. That would never be passed though. They'll be very lucky to get the current reforms through.

 

[tweaker2]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

Totally agree with you on this.

The problem, however, is that it's the big agribusinesses that have our legislators in their back pockets. The little guys can only put up with the way things are or possibly get less or run out of business if the big agribusinesses determine that the small farmers need to be gotten rid of through buyouts, underselling, etc. to remove a possible threat to their sweetheart deals with the legislators they own.

 

[Modelworks]

I live around a bunch of farmers, most of the family farmers are gone, mainly because the parents grew older and the children didn't want to do farm life, they went to college and into other areas because they saw no future and rightly so. As farmers grow old and have nobody to take over the farm they often get approached by companies looking to lease the fields and that is an attractive prospect for someone who is retiring and has hundreds of acres of land they either have to sell or plant and they still have to pay taxes .

The problem with subsidized farming is it doesn't work. It doesn't help the small farmers stay in business because the problem isn't that crops fail. The problem with the small farmers is the larger companies have more buying power. A single farmer here can plant a field of corn for $1500, the company farm being able to buy in bulk can do the same for $250. A single farmer has to invest in machinery that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and that machinery requires payments to be made year round, not just when it is being useful. The corporate farm has fleets of equipment they move around the USA to wherever they need it , paying for the machinery in one season.

Family farmers have to pay the land taxes, seed, fertilizer, harvesting cost, equipment cost and when you look at the facts, the land does not generate enough revenue to make up for the cost a single farmer will spend. Most farmers are living crop to crop with no money for retirement. If a crop fails that isn't the reason the farm fails, it is just the final kick off the cliff.

 

[Darwin333]

Every industry in our country can fall under that definition and thus qualify for bailout money.

I wouldn't quite say that. Food is one of the very basic necessities and one of the very few of those basic necessities that are not either .gov owned or under heavy .gov control (in most states at least).

That being said, half a trillion damned dollars? Holy shit thats a fuckload of corn.

 

[Modelworks]

I like this a lot better than the current 'how many acres do you have? Here is your check.' program. It's a move in the right direction.

That isn't the current program. The current program requires the farmer plant the field, then if the farmer is unable to sell the crop the government buys the crop, it is like making a product when you know that someone buying it is guaranteed, it causes prices to be fixed because corporate buyers are not going to go much above what the government is offering, the program originated due to food shortages decades ago to increase farmers willingness to grow fields that were not in use. Most farmers during that time were not willing to spend the money to farm and have it fail without the government guaranteeing that if they grew it the government would buy it.

The program worked. There is now so much corn surplus that the silos can't hold it all, they pile it on the side of the fields in huge piles that stretch for miles.

If you really want to be outraged, read up on sugar subsidies where the US government allows slave labor like conditions to exist inside the USA, often with illegals from Honduras, in order to keep sugar prices stable and rewards companies like dixie with purchase contracts.

 

[Modelworks]

That being said, half a trillion damned dollars? Holy shit thats a fuckload of corn.

And that corn is going to waste sitting in piles beside railways and silos because there is nowhere to put it, the government agrees to buy it if someone else doesn't and so they continue to buy it just to toss it aside.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

Why should we help family farmers? Why not help family owned dry cleaners, restaurants, or car washes? This idea that farming is some how more noble than other professions is nonsense. Between the subsidies and the import tariffs, our farm policy is one of the worst examples of cronie capitalism.

 

[Lemon law]

Because of the American family farmer, Americans enjoy the lowest food prices in the world. But if we let corporate agribusiness to dictate our American food prices as they organize onto a monopoly, yes I am guessing American food costs would at least triple.

So yes there should be a role for government to have cost effective regulation, but the day of the 40 acre family farm is long past. But its a bigger mistake, IMHO to put 100% of farm subsidy money into only 40,000 acre plus agribusiness operations. If we kill off the small independent and efficient 1,000 acre family farmer, ya can bet your boots, American food price will triple.

 

[Thump553]

I don't have a problem helping out the "family farmers," but I DO have a problem giving payments to the big corporate-owned farms. That's just more corporate welfare bullshit.

Help the little guy stay in business. Let the big corporations fend for themselves.

That's fighting a battle in a war that was lost thirty years ago. The family farm pretty much doesn't exist anymore, especially once you exclude hobby farmers and fairly fringe activities. Nearly anything left that could remotely be classified as a family farm these days is really a small business with (probably temporary) employees, etc.

That said there are a lot of votes associated with ag subsidies, in addition to giving the appearance of supporting true American values, so don't expect either party to stop stuffing that hog feeder with taxpayer bucks anytime in your lifetime. Not even the teabaggers-I dare say not even Saint Paul-will make a real effort to cut this.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

That's fighting a battle in a war that was lost thirty years ago. The family farm pretty much doesn't exist anymore, especially once you exclude hobby farmers and fairly fringe activities. Nearly anything left that could remotely be classified as a family farm these days is really a small business with (probably temporary) employees, etc.

That said there are a lot of votes associated with ag subsidies, in addition to giving the appearance of supporting true American values, so don't expect either party to stop stuffing that hog feeder with taxpayer bucks anytime in your lifetime. Not even the teabaggers-I dare say not even Saint Paul-will make a real effort to cut this.

The Republicans at least tried to cut out the sugar tariffs that drive up sugar prices and favor corn syrup. There was a government study a few years ago that said the tariffs cost 3x as many jobs as they create because it forces food producers to move outside of the country.

But yes, both parties are in the pocket of agribusiness. The Republicans just have a more diverse set of corporate donors.

 

[Jhhnn]

Farming is an industry where our national security interests have to be taken into account. It is a critical industry for the entire nation, and changes take a relatively long time to make. Thus, there needs to be a policy in place to ensure that regardless of the prices set by supply and demand in the market, the needs of the country are met. That's exactly what they're doing when they set price buffers etc.

If you keep thinking like that, you might be a Liberal, a hated New Dealer, an ebil Leftist.

Just stop it- your street cred among the resident fringe-whacks is going to Hell in a handbasket.

 

[Matt1970]

So we are going to take another stab at price fixing....