Ron Kind, Congressman from the western tier of the great state of Wisconsin wants to do what needed to be done a long time ago but for which most farmers swimming in the Federal trough were once massively opposed. Ron Kind wants to drastically cut back the Federal Farm Subsidy Program. Read about it here in this article from the New York Times.
For all the screaming that Repugnicans do about "welfare" they always conveniently forget that the US Department of Agriculture oversees one of the largest and most lucrative welfare programs in the nation - the Federal Farm Subsidy Program. Its a welfare program that has lasted since the Dust Bowl Days and it remains in place today solely as a way to buy votes from the 2 million or so farmers in the country. These are regularly referred to as "poor farmers" and are the subject of "Farm Aid" and other hilarious publicity stunts.
When I lived in North Dakota my office partner, Hal Kantrud, told me not long after moving to that state about the "four seasonal bitches" of North Dakota farmers. Hal said "In the spring they bitch because its too wet and they can't plow their fields. In the summer they bitch because its too dry and the wheat won't grow. In the fall they bitch because the ducks are eating all their wheat, and in the winter they bitch because there aren't enough grain cars available to haul away that year's record crop."
Lets look at some of those programs:
1) In the mid-1980s native prairie in the Sandhills of Nebraska was selling for $40 an acre if you bought the land by the section (a square mile or 640 acres). However the Department of Agriculture had a program where farmers were paid $60 an acre to take corn ground out of production. So, what did the farmers do (these are the same people who had bumper stickers reading - Farmers: The Original Conservationists). These "original conservationists" plowed up 10s of thousands of acres of virgin prairie, then ran to the nearest Agriculture office to sign up to be paid $60 an acre to not grow corn on land that was worth $40 an acre.
2) Nebraska promotes itself as having a $1 Billion dollar corn industry. Nebraska fails to tell you that $600 million of that billion comes from Federal subsidies that you and I pay for.
3). The Red River Valley of North Dakota is a major producer of sugar beets. Several years ago during a period of outrageous sugar beet production the price that farmers received for their beets plummeted. What did Agriculture do in response? There were 19 different programs available to deal with the over production. One of those programs would pay farmers to truck their beets to nearby cattle feed lots where they could sell the beets as animal food. But that wasn't good enough. The "poor farmers" couldn't get enough money so eventually the most commonly used program was to pay farmers to simply plow their sugar beets back into the ground. Yup, original conservationists.
4). Milk is sold in increments of 100 pounds or "hundred weight." The Department of Agriculture, to bolster the price that "poor farmers" make sets a target price for milk. Lets say the target price is $10.00 a hundredweight. However lets say the market for milk is $7.70 a hundredweight. Guess what happens? You, me and everyone else who pays taxes pays the difference (in this case $2.30 per hundred pounds) to the farmer so they have an assured $10 per hundred pounds.
5) Corn is sold in increments of bushels (one bushel of corn is 56 lbs). Corn, just like milk, has target prices set for it by the Department of Agriculture. If the target price isn't met, you me and everyone else who pays taxes pays the difference. I'll bet there are a lot of electricians and plumbers out there who wish that an agency of the Federal government would have a sure-thing price set up for their businesses.
6) Each fall, despite all of the dire predictions of "crop failure" from drought or whatever, we have a bumper crop produced in the country. Record or "bumper" crops cause prices to fall. Farmers don't have to worry because of the corn price support. However what to do about storing all of that corn until it can be sold and they receive their check from the government? Well the government has a plan for that also - its called subsidized storage. Drive around in Iowa or Illinois for a few days and you'll see all sorts of grain storage facilities. Many of them are used as part of the government program to store surplus grains (at taxpayer expense) until the grain can be sold and the other subsidy kicks in.
7) I raised sheep in high school. Each spring I would shear my sheep and sell the wool at a local agricultural cooperative. The wool would be sent where ever it is that wool goes and I would be paid a certain amount of money for each pound of wool my sheep produced. The checks should have stopped coming the moment I turned in the wool. But they didn't. The agriculture department had a program that ensured that every year for FIVE YEARS after I sold the wool I received a check as a percentage of the total amount of wool I sold. So, in 1969 I received X dollars for my wool. In 1970 I received 80 percent of what I was paid in 1969 for the wool. In 1971 I was paid 60 percent of what I was paid in 1969 ad infinitum. What a racket!
8) Grain farmers and dairy farmers aren't the only ones getting a free ride. We all own the national grasslands of the United States. They are managed by the US Forest Service which is an arm of the Agriculture Department. Grasslands on Forest Service land, on Bureau of Land Management lands and on lands managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service are all subject to grazing allotments where local neighbors (who are regularly called "partners") are able to graze their cattle on the Federal grasslands. The rate a rancher pays to graze his cattle on Federal lands is called an AUM or Animal Unit Per Month. An animal unit in this case is a cow and her calf. They equal one AUM. Thanks to Congressionally mandated legislation, the rancher pays $1.47 an AUM to graze his cattle on our national grasslands. In many cases neighboring private lands are grazed at $20 to $25 an AUM. And what a difference ownership makes. Look at most National Grasslands or other Federal lands - they are many times grazed down to where they look like a golf course. Look at the adjacent private lands and they are grazed responsibly and there is usually an abundance of native grassland. Why are the Federal lands grazed irresponsibly?
Each spring, range conservationists calculate how many AUM's they think a certain grazing allotment can handle. Lets say that the range conservationst determines that pasture A can handle 100 AUM. The rancher is told that he can graze 100 AUM at $1.47. However the rancher owns 150 cows with their calf. He has 50 percent more cattle than the land can handle. He's not happy so he goes home and calls his Congressman or Senator and whines that the mean Federal government wont allow him to abuse public lands. The Senator or Congressman, always willing to buy a vote, calls the Director of the agency whose range conservationist has just upset his constituent. After a cordial conversation, the Director, who has likely never seen the Refuge or BLM land or National Grassland, determines that in fact the pasture in question can handle 150 AUM just like the Congressman or Senator asked, and voila! Suddenly 150 AUM are grazing land that can only handle 100 AUM. When I learned this in 1988 I stopped eating beef as a protest of grazing practices on your land and mine. The only exception I make is eating a cheeseburger on the day of a Jimmy Buffett concert I'm attending.
Its agricultural welfare at the grandest scale and it’s done to mollify voters with no regard for the long term consequences to the earth. Each year, singer Willie Nelson pulls at the public heart string with his bogus “Farm Aid” concerts designed to help the “poor” farmers. While Willie is crooning away, he forgets to tell his audience that the taxpayer is contributing $40 billion annually to farmers and ranchers through subsidy checks and set-aside programs, and grazing programs, and other forms of welfare for farmers. And this gargantuan give away is for less than two percent of the American public. To me, the only “poor” farmer is one who can’t figure out how to sign up for the taxpayer subsidized freebies, or one whose mailbox has blown down and the mailman can’t deliver his checks.
I was once seated on a flight from Washington, D.C. to Great Falls, Montana, with a particularly repulsive now–former Senator from Montana named Conrad Burns. After several drinks to fortify me, I asked him when Congress was going to start welfare programs for carpenters and electricians like they have for farmers. The Senator said he didn’t know what I meant, so I reminded him of the $1.47 per AUM policy that western Congressmen had established for grazing public grasslands down to golf course height, and the $40 billion for subsidy checks.
I then said, “Senator, it doesn’t matter if it’s too wet or too dry, over production or under production, the Congress has a welfare program to bail out farmers. When are you going to do the same thing for carpenters and electricians now that there is a slump in home building?”
The Senator said, “You just don’t understand farm policy, do you.” I said, “I understand farm policy too well,” and went back to my drink. I still refuse to eat American beef.
For the sake of some fiscal sanity in the country I hope Congressman Kind is successful in severing the Federal umbilical cord that farmers continue to feed from (some "poor farmers" receive up to $2 million a year in subsidy checks). The sooner the better. Its bad enough this horrific waste of money has had to go on as long as it has. The dire days of the Dust Bowl are long gone yet this artifact of welfare remains. I look forward to the day when farmers are no longer paid to feed at the Federal trough.
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