Are they much different than us?

[cakadu]

This article appeared in today's edition of the New York Times. It would appear as though some of their concerns regarding the family farm are no different than ours. Could it be that those getting the lion's share of all that subsidy money are the bigger guys? How is it that the big guys get most of the money, when clearly some of them don't need it?

Will Rural America Have a
Future?

By CHUCK HASSEBROOK

WALTHILL, Neb. — As the farm bill continues to be debated in a conference committee seeking a compromise between House and Senate versions, the prospects for a good law are worsening. The choice is simple. Congress can write bigger checks to the nation's biggest farms — which seems to be where the consensus is heading — or it can make a significant investment in creating genuine opportunity in rural America. It cannot do both.

Opportunity is in short supply in much of rural America. Stretches of Nebraska and the Dakotas include the nation's two lowest-income counties and more than half of the bottom 20. Across a wide swath of rural America, communities are dying and churches and schools are closing.

Community decline is driven by agricultural decline. Small and medium-size farms are being driven out by falling prices for farm commodities and aggressive competition from large farms armed with six-figure federal payments. As a study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment concluded, "Communities that are surrounded by farms that are larger than can be operated by a family have a bimodal income distribution with a few wealthy elites, a majority of poor laborers and virtually no middle class." That is not progress. That is social decay.

The farm bill can be a vehicle to restore social progress and economic opportunity in rural America. But the conference committee reconciling the House and Senate farm bills must resolve two critical issues.

First, conference committee leaders must find the courage to stop subsidizing the large farms in such a way that they are assisted in pushing their smaller neighbors out of business. The Senate bill caps payments to large farms. The House does not.

Farmers and nonfarmers agree on this issue. A recent survey covering 27 states found that 81 percent of farmers polled want farm income support payments carefully targeted to small farms. And my farmer friends will be pleased to learn that nationwide polls find that Americans will support farm payments — but only if they help small family farms.

Second, we must balance the immediate relief provided by farm income support programs with investment in rural America's future. The budget framework now being developed by farm bill conferees does not do this. Support for agricultural and rural development initiatives has been cut in half from the levels set by the House and Senate bills; such initiatives would get less than 1 percent of the amount spent on farm income support programs.

As a result, programs to assist beginning farmers and bolster research to develop new farming methods that strengthen family farms are in jeopardy. Financing for the development of cooperatives that help family farmers reach higher-value markets — markets that offer real opportunity — is also in danger.

Consumer surveys find that most Americans would pay premium prices for food produced on environmentally responsible family farms. But they can do so only if we build the new cooperatives and markets that link them with the farmers who have what they want.

As matters stand, the prairie land that welcomed my homesteading great-great-grandfather is beginning to look too much like the feudal country he left behind. It does not have to be that way. This Congress can create genuine opportunity in rural America, build stronger communities and serve consumers better.

Chuck Hassebrook is executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, Neb.

[cowman]

An excellent article. The Canadian government and most of the experts would argue that the "small inefficient farmer" must go to make way for the "large efficient farmer". They tend to leave out the family farm/corporate farm thing as it makes for bad press.
Consider what happened in the hog industry in the SE United States. The small hog farmer was told by the main packer(Tyson) that if they wanted to deliver pigs to his packing plants they would have to have a certain volume. Now Tyson would finance the expansion of these farmers at good terms. Of course then you were obligated to deliver to Tyson. Once the barns were built you were informed you would have to buy your genetics and feed from Tyson. Still okay. Then the sqeeze came. Lower pig prices, higher feed costs and genetics. Soon the farmer was basically working for nothing. He had put up his land as capital. When the squeeze got bad enough Tyson got the barn and the land and he hired the farmer back to run the barn!!
Now who was Tyson and how did he get away with this? He was Bill Clintons good friend,business partner(remember White Water?) and major backer. His money was dirty. It came from cocaine and gun running. The scandal happening right now in Russia over the American chickens traces right back to Tyson and Clinton. These are the "gangsters" who run our food corporations. No different in Canada, the U.S. or Russia.

[pandiana]

Articles like the above certainly contribute to that sinking feeling we have that the cause of the traditional farm is lost. Have we been too complacent and let the waves roll right over our head without a struggle? If corporate farms continue on this globalization and vertical integration strategy I would agree that the majority of farm workers will become peasants in a large feudal system controlled by the moneyed 'lords'. This is not just a farm problem as there has been much evidence to document the disappearing of the middle class in the western world. Integration puts enormous power into the hands of a few people.
Enron has shown us that not only can we not always trust them but profit driven companies show little concern for society as a whole and are not above cheating their stockholders. Why would we want to give them so much power?