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TechnoratiFamily Farms Pulled Us Out of the Great Depression
It seems to be a widely held myth that World War II was the main agent for moving the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Cornell University Professor George F. Warren, an important adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt on rural development policy, figured out that it is agriculture that leads countries into and out of depressions. The Roosevelt Administration is the only administration that tried to do something about supporting the family farm.
Our recovery started in 1942, the year the Steagall Amendment to the War Stabilization Act mandated farm parity, but the war got the credit. We then had ten years of economic stability until 1952 when the Steagall Amendment was allowed to expire.
In 1952 "export-oriented pricing" replaced the New Deal policy that had put farm prices in balance, or parity, with other prices. That New Deal policy worked effectively with farmer-approved "supply management" that cost far less than today's subsidies to Agri-business.
Farm parity laws that created a fair price floor for all raw materials was the main agent for moving the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. This support of prices allowed farmers to afford to stay on the farm and rebuild the United States economy literally from the ground up.
Basically, parity is a measuring device that puts the value of raw commodities at a level that equals all the costs, including labor costs and capital costs.
Parity maintained a level for farm-product prices by governmental support and intended to give farmers adequate purchasing power. Parity, official value, or par value, maintained equality between the cost to farmers for their production and the price they received for their products.
Parity laws guaranteed equality of price, rate of exchange, wages, and buying power. Farm parity laws made sure that farm income was keeping up with farm costs.
In 1933 farmers in Nebraska, for example, received almost 43 percent less than the parity level. This is what crushed family farms, drove people off the land and extended the Great Depression.
True democracy requires an agriculture of numerous family farms, owned by farmers rooted in their communities, not by corporate landlords. Agri-business is the work of corporate landlords.
Our exporting of grain at "globally competitive" prices injures Third World farmers and results from our failure to keep commodity prices at parity (balance) with other goods and services. The U.S. farm community has seen a 50% fall in the number of farmers during a 30-year period of "export-oriented" agriculture.
The present path is such a narrow, competitive approach to the world that it misses the possibilities of cooperation and disregards the legitimate need of other nations for their own markets and their own resources. The present path is not the path to peace.
Care International, one of the world's major aid agencies, recently refused $45,000,000.00 of United States aid money. The money the charity refused is tied to buying the grain from American farmers and shipping it in American carriers.
Which means that much of the aid ‘money' goes back to the United States.
Some food goes to the needy, but the rest is sold cheaply in markets, undercutting local farmers and giving little incentive for them to grow more. The combination of wastage and the damage done to the local market means the aid does more harm than good.
The current system injures family farmers globally.
Our nearly 50-year-old "export-oriented, globally competitive" farm pricing policy is intended to gain markets by undercutting prices paid to farmers abroad. This amounts to Welfare For Agri-business.
The theme of "growing the economy" through exports ignores the experience of farmers. Non-farmers often confuse agriculture and agri-business.
To contend that agriculture has done well even while the number of farmers has plummeted surely misses essential facts. Those who work in agriculture speak with credibility about how our pricing policy undercuts both our farmers and the farmers of hungry nations.
The United State's thirst for foreign markets and resources is due to overlooking needs and resources of our own people, leading to growing income dis-parities here. Fair farm parity laws will compensate for this inequity.
We can turn around our current situation and avoid a Greater Depression by raising basic storable commodities back up to 90-100 percent of parity. Supporting family farms can put the United States back on a secure economic footing.
Jay Greathouse is Director of Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute founded by Willie Nelson April, 2007.
65 Comments so far
Show AllSee a documentary called: The Real Dirt On Farmer John
Then go out and turn up some of that lawn and plant garlic. Get some nice bulbs and plant individual cloves about 4 inches apart, 2 inches deep. Cover with a layer of straw and forget about it.
In the spring you'll see green shoots popping up. Leave the straw on for weed control. Harvest the bulbs in mid summer and hang dry in bunches out of direct sunlight. In a month they'll be cured enough to enjoy in a variety of dishes all winter long.
In early Spring dig up another patch, add sand if your soil is heavy. Then make little mounded rows about 6 to 8 inches apart and plant carrots. The seeds are tiny. Plant about an inch apart and thin as they mature. Then dig up more lawn and keep planting.
Before you know it you'll have your own "victory garden". You'll be an inspiration for all your neighbors and will be eating delicious, fresh home grown food all year long. All the while [green]thumbing your nose at agribusiness. Plus you can moon them while pulling weeds and harvesting.
You'll eat better, feel better, look better and be happier as a result. Plus you'll save money and use less gas, thus helping solve global climate change. Now turn off the TV, put away that lawn mower and grab a shovel, rake and hoe. Happy gardening!
Up here in Canada, due to climate more then anything, there has never been that transition to corn on the scale it is done in the United States.
When I was on the farm in Alberta the growing season was not long enough to allow for corn.
Since I left the growing season has increased and more robust varieties of Corn are out there but the farmers that grow corn are still in the minority. As far as crops go wheat, canola , oats and barley still rule.
My cousins that farm still use the old practices. That is they have grass fed cattle. They rotate their land into pasture every so many years. They grow Alfalfa for hay to feed the cattle through the winter and rotate crops.
They do not use pesticides and herbicides as the need for this is minimized with good practices.
My cousin tells me that the large scale agriculture now penetrates to where he lives. This includes practices like corner to corner farming. That is every bush and tree is pushed down, every slough drained to maximize the land that is seeded.
(We kept bush in the middle of fields as a windbreak and as shelter for the cattle in the summers from the heat. The Government in Alberta is actually promoting plowing these bushes under to allow for more land seeded. They even encourage farmers to push down all the trees along the roads and between fields that were planted as windbreaks years and years ago. We used the sloughs as one source of our hay for our cattle bailing the fringes not underwater. The cattle seemed to prefer this hay through the winter)
One large monoculture crop is then grown on that land and this repeated year after year. It is THESE practices that are harmful to the enviroment.
To those ex farmers that suggest there nothing wrong with growing Corn over and over again on a massive scale I simply disagree it not destructive to the enviroment.
While it a truth that such large scale industrial agriculture might on paper seem more profitable, I feel overall costs are higher when you consider the use of pesticides, herbicides and the like.
The farms my cousin speaks of, rely on subsidies. They can not turn a profit without those subsidies, or the farmers leave the land in the winter to work in the oil industry. My cousin does neither and turns a profit.
And while I have meat in my diet, the growth of feedlots in South Alberta where cattle are jammed together in small spaces to lay in their own shit as they are fattened up for market sickens me. As are the new chicken farms where chickens have a few square inches of space. When *I* speak of the family farm i speak of the practices of the 50's and 60's such as we had in Alberta. Our hogs had a pasture. Our Chickens roamed free around the barnyard going into the coop at night. Our cattle had pastures.
"To those ex farmers that suggest there nothing wrong with growing Corn over and over again on a massive scale I simply disagree it not destructive to the enviroment."
I have an Uncle in law who has six thousand acres, he rotates his crops with corn, soy bean, wheat and Alfalfa. He also allows a chunk of land to go fallow every year. All he does is plant and he hires out the harvesting. He seems to be doing pretty well.
Rickster
"To those ex farmers that suggest there nothing wrong with growing Corn over and over again on a massive scale I simply disagree it not destructive to the enviroment."
It has been scientifically established as I understood it that not rotating crops damaged the land.
"The farms my cousin speaks of, rely on subsidies. They can not turn a profit without those subsidies, or the farmers leave the land in the winter to work in the oil industry. My cousin does neither and turns a profit."
All corporate farming gets their main profit from subsidies as far as I know. Corn especially because of the foolish biofuels bill. Am I wrong?
I do not know how the subsidy structure works in the United States,nor am I familiar with Canadas current structure.
How it used to be was a subsidy for so many acres of land under cultivation and not really tied to the type of crop. We also have the Canadian Wheat board which buys all the farmers grain and seels it on their behalf with a guarenteed floor price.
There are also marketing boards with give a quota as to how many eggs and the like a given farmer can grow and setting a floor price.
The Tyranny of Agribusiness in bed with Government has destroyed the family farm, in the US, and destroys poor farming countries through the institution of the World Bank/IMF Scam. Look at Haiti before the IMF came in... They produced all of their own rice and and produce. Since we have decimated the farmers with cheap US Agri-products forced by contract.
The US/IMF/WORLD BANK fraud is killing millions worldwide while reaping massive corporate profits.
Fascism through covert corporate operations instead of bombs = same result.
I'm a 60 year old farmer. Government programs have always had their good and bad points. To me, the worst thing about them is that they have encouraged the growth of ever larger farms. Most of the large operators do a good job in many ways. However, the long-term sustainability of most modern farming practices is sadly lacking and the continual loss of smaller farms is much more than just a sad nostalgia trip.
Thanks for the insight.
It was the demise of the small farmer that was unavoidable facet of the death of the Roman republic. Flash forward to modern times and the parable applies.
www.wunderman-comics.com
This article makes points about the Second World War and military spending not ending the 1930s depression that need to be made and as well shows the need to support family farmers. It can also be said that research has shown that military spending creates only half or only a third as many jobs as spending on social programs. Military spending is much less efficient at stimulating the economy.
AD
Sioux Rose
AD: Thanks for the statistics. From a moral point of view, military spending reminds me of an inmate in an asylum who keeps banging his head against the wall. How much spent is spent on rebuilding what the bombs and bulldozers break down? Iraq is a classic example. Much of its infrastructure operated prior to the US invasion, and for all the talk of sending phenomenal sums of money to rebuild Iraq... apart from the US embassy, the toilets don't work, the electricity is on for scant few hours a day, there's talk of cholera from the polluted water that citizens must use, ETC. It has been rendered a hell-hole, all so that a few bad boys with complexes of insecure adolescents get to PLAY war with all the ridiculously overpriced toys the Pentagon gets to churn out year after year by clammoring words like "freedom!," "Defense!," Democracy!" ... to which I can only add, digusting! diabolical! degenerative!
I challenge all of you who read this article to get off the Interstates and travel some back roads through the small towns and witness that the Depression has been taking place in Rural America for the past 40 years. The corn and soybean "deserts" that have replaced family farms are not a sign of prosperity, but a sign of the depopulating of the rural areas of our country. The best farmland and latest technology yield nothing more than poverty for most farmers and their families, but enrich the seed, fertilizer, chemical, and grain companies-oh, and don't forget the banker who reaps the interest windfall every year.
You say The best farmland and latest technology yields nothing more than poverty. What the heck are you talking about? What back roads did you travel? Data? Where? When? Who did you study?
I'm a farm kid who decided to leave. I wasn't forced out. I just left to go to college and get a good job. That's the way it's been for over 100 years.
In 1962 in "An Adaptive Program for Agriculture, the Committee for Economic Development, a corporate think tank, proposed that the U.S. get rid of one third of it's farmers "excess resources (mainly labor)" in five years, with programs to get youth to move away. They wanted cheaper labor in the cities and cheaper, below cost raw materials. The proposed method was a lowering of price floors. In a 1974 report they said the goal had been accomplished, but price floors were further lowered, and then eliminated, under the growing influence of agribusiness lobbyists. See Crisis by Design by Mark Ritchie (online) or Legacy of Crisis by George Naylor (online).
Most government research has supported these trends with "latest technology." See Jim Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. But much of this "latest" research' violated the science of ecology, as reductionist science tends to do. It wasn't truly advanced, just corporate subsidization. For some years there has been a trend toward more advanced research for sustainable agriculture.
Data on how farmers lost money in the marketplace on commodities about all the time, and even lost with subsidies added (overall) on the crops/years studied can be found at USDA ERS. Search "Commodity Costs and Returns: U.S. and Regional Cost and Return Data." Corn and wheat lost about 70 billion each 1981-2006 in the marketplace, if full cost per acre figures are matched with acres harvested (for acres see USDA NASS "Historical Track Record - Crop Production". Corn was above zero (not counting subsidies,) only in 1996.
Or drive through rural areas and see the boarded up mainstreets, closed schools, and farms where the infrastructure (especially for value added livestock) has been allowed to decay.
You, sir, are a perfect example of a corn-fed ignorant retard who refuses to understand where food comes from. People didn't leave their farms like crazy until the last 50 years thanks to greed and it wasn't until the 1980s that Big Agri made its hostile takeover with more to come in the 1990s. If you had stayed on a farm, you wouldn't be so ignorant.
Wow Carla, that's pretty harsh, were YOU raised on a farm ? Most farm kids do end up leaving, they know how much work it is and often how despotic the old man can be . . . then there are no family heirs to the property who want to work it and it ends up getting subdivided because no one can afford the taxes and etc. . . We are in precisely that situation with my husband's family, he did run away as a young adult and I totally can't blame him after seeing the family dynamics in which he and his siblings were basically farm slaves . . .
Later we did take over a sixty acre family field (formerly potatoes, now hay) but guess what ? We can't afford fertilizer any more. We have put up hay for twenty five years on that field and it's always been about break-even until now, even raising the price of hay we are losing money. And we're tired of the stress. And it is prime south facing view property and the realtors are calling . . .
I make almost as much with WAY less input and effort growing bedding plants in a couple of greenhouses. My neighbor at farmers market supports his family on three acres of organic vegetables, mostly carrots. People in inner cities are pulling in tens of thousands of dollars from vacant lots where they have put up high tunnel greenhouses and are intensively growing organic salad greens. We have to think past our preconceptions of agriculture, both agribusiness and small farm, and figure out ways to grow food more sustainably at every level.
The small, diversified family farm is one of the best models for sustainability BUT family dynamics being what they are, it is unrealistic to expect them to function consistently over time. I think that small, diversified COMMUNITY farms might do better. For a lot of reasons. I think the Dutch are onto this concept, which might explain why they are so successful.
"People in inner cities are pulling in tens of thousands of dollars from vacant lots where they have put up high tunnel greenhouses and are intensively growing organic salad greens."
Not just inner cities rural areas too. That's what I'm want to do but money to start is a problem. Right now my little back yard garden is producing more than me and my wife can eat along. Some of my neighbors love me you know.
Compost, mulch and more compost that's the way to go.
Rickster
"were YOU raised on a farm ?"
No, but I lived near one and am not ignorant about it.
"Most farm kids do end up leaving, they know how much work it is and often how despotic the old man can be"
But that doesn't excuse Cman2 for his utter ignorance.
"he did run away as a young adult and I totally can't blame him after seeing the family dynamics in which he and his siblings were basically farm slaves . . ."
"We can't afford fertilizer any more."
That's because it's usually petroleum based. If we would get rid of that stupid ban on hemp, we'd actually have the power to take back farming. At least I'm writing to my Congressman to support Ron Paul's Hemp Farming Act which he's trying again to push. Let's see if your rep can follow suit.
We can take back our small/family farms and get things back in order or at least do something between that and the toxic corporate factory farms gone haywire. It's just that some people delude themselves into believing that it's not possible when in fact it is. Keep trying. And great idea on diversified community farms.
I agree, it IS possible despite all the naysayers, right now I'm writing a paper on agriculture in the Tanana Valley, Alaska,
in doing research it is so energizing to read reports from the very early 1900's of people who had exactly
the sort of vision for this area as we are talking about now, not only that, they walked their talk and raised
huge truck gardens, amazing greenhouse produce, livestock and even grains. Then the mining boom was
over and a lot of the men left and World War I came along and more men left and it's been downhill ever since. . .
The next generation of farmers were post World War II veterans who settled here but they had so many issues
that they seriously made life hell for their kids and of all the ones I know very few will have anything to do with the land.
Greenhouses are so excellent in this dry sunny climate and a great season extender, greenhouse crops (mostly bedding plants)
make up half of the state's agricultural income and their potential hasn't even begun to be realized.
Hemp would be an excellent way to revitalize our hayfield which is sadly compacted and in need of renovation,
I wasn't aware of Ron Paul's Hemp Farming Act but will follow up on it . . . my favorite clothes are made from hemp !
The article should have covered dumping (IATP, US Dumping on World Agricultural Markets) and the data showing that farm prices have been below full costs, (excluding subsidies and often including subsidies), causing us to lose money on exports for a quarter century, pouring out our wealth. This is an important part of the role of agriculture as an economic stimulus. See USDA ERS "Commodity Costs and Returns: U.S. and Regional Cost and Return Data" online and note data 1981-2006 for corn, wheat, cotton, rice, soybeans, grain sorghum, barley and oats. Farm groups aren't up to speed on this yet.
old goat:
What is a 'thanatocracy'?
I've never wanted to own a home, been a renter my whole life. But on a few occasions I lived out in the country, and I had gardens, and now that I'm in the city again, I miss digging my fingers into the soil and working up an honest sweat and eating the fruits of my labor. Ownership's only attraction for me is the anticipation of going back to the land.
It's pitiful that we now have several generations who don't have a clue what it's like to grow their own food. Realistically, what on earth would we do if suddenly agribusiness and every other big business connected with food went belly up?
(Not such a far-fetched idea...)
=
Who watches the watchers?
Compost, mulch and more compost. Take a two foot pile of grass clippings mixed with leaves that's been setting out over the winter and grow to your heart content. as you continue to add more grass clippings and leaves through the years you garden will just get bigger and bigger. No need for fertilizer and it doesn't dry out near as fast. Any weeds you find just pull them up by the roots and drop them on the ground. Actuality the growing media becomes so rich weeds aren't near the problem as mu soil based only planting. I don't seem to have near the problems with bad bugs either. I think it may have something to do with the fact that good bugs thrive in my garden.
I find and grab all the grass clippings, leaves and any other organic matter I can get my hands on anymore. My okra patch got buried in grass clipping over the summer and I didn't have a single weed problem and bad bugs never even showed up this year. I'm going to plant tomatoes, peppers and squash there next season and I'm not even going to dig the soil except where the plants go. I've already started spreading leaves on top of the grass clipping and will bury that next year with more grass clipping.
I've been doing this for three years now and my garden just continues to get better, produces more and is by far less work. Plus I don't have to water near as often.
Rickster
bligh4
My family has been in the family farming business for at least the last 300 years.
My two brothers and I grew up on a farm but did not go into the business. Reason: the government made it too hard to make a living. The price of grain per bushel when I was 12 was approximatly the price of grain per bushel when I was 40. Not adjusted for inflation, the actual same price. Unlimited imports and limited exports helped bring this about. Meanwhile, interest rates went through the roof.
But, then again, when have "progressives" given a flying f--k about family farms? Having identified myself as having a farming background on these boards, I've heard farmers accused of being stupid, redneck, regressive, cruel to animals, destroying the environment, raping the land, causing global warming ect.
Of course these same people expect to find cheap, abundant food at there local Safeway. I suggest they get their asses on a tractor for overnight planting to see how they like it.
So please give me a break on the crocodile tears.
Lots of progressive students here at school also care a lot about farm issues. I know at least a dozen hardcore activist students here who are hard at work trying to create a community-supported organic farm near the campus. Cheer up man, we fricking love real farmers :-)
CD is not the right place to discuss farm issues.
"Progressive" lefties here don't have clue what they are talking about. They bash corn being fed to cattle, but haven't a clue that it's corn that goes into 95% of those siloes that sit on those idealistic pictures of family farms they dream about.
Lefties complain about the farm bills in congress yet are critical of farmers who want to get out of their conservation acres. Lefties haven't a clue that those conservation (CRP) acres are funded by the money passed in farm bills. Lefties endlessly complain about the latest farm bill as money going to agri-business even though 75% of money goes to feeding the poor and land conservation.
Lefties promote organic farming in the idealistic, herbicide-free world they drool about even though they never, ever want to do the back-breaking manual work required, like chopping weeds by hand in soybean fields. I've done it.
And what are "family farms" anyway? I know a family that runs over 5000 acres of grain land. Lefties here would complain they are a "corporate farm". They were a family the last time I checked. In Minnesota the only grain farms that were truely "Corporate" all went out of business over 100 years ago. They were called Bonanza farms and were run by investors. The Bonanza farms turned out to be disasters.
Organic farming, labor intensive and best suited for small farms, is proving to be more profitable than the petroleum based chemical agribusiness that destroys the soil, pollutes the water and causes neoplastic disease epidemics.
I owned an organic farm. It is more a satisfying way of life than it is a business. The problems start when small farming is seen as a growth business instead of a sustainable one.
I know a few righties that are buying organic food.
The newest way to go is permaculture...a bit beyond just organic farming. What did you grow?
Typical rightwing bullshit. You don't know what farms are because you never bothered to learn about them when you were a kid. As you admitted in another post, you left for the cities to get a job. Well, listen up mister. Where the hell do cities get their food from? The sky? I don't think you ever really were on a farm when you were a kid or you wouldn't be showing such blatant contempt for farms. As a city girl who grew up on a small town in Louisiana when I was a child, I can never forget the plight of non-corporate farmers year after year. Buying local became more difficult and expensive as the shenanigans who pushed corporate factory farms too far privatized the small/factory farms and drove them out of business. By the way you post, you've never been on a farm so don't even lie.
Some progressives were powerful allies on the price issues you identify during the 1980s and 1990s. Since then progressive support for many things has increased, but the whole subsidy issue in the commodity title has not been understood by progressives.
You haven't given the years for age 12 and age 40. That helps tell the story. Yes, I can easily see that that could have been true, (not adjusted for inflation). So what was it, 12 in 1940s?
Farmers as a group are diverse and independent, many things. The needed coalition has not yet come together.
bligh4
Thanks Brad,
I turned 12 in the summer of 1973. Corn was in the 3.5$/ bushel range. Gas was 30c/gallon. A movie ticket was a dollar. A coke was a quarter. Flash forward 30 years and everything had quadrupled in price or more- but corn was still about 3.5$/bushel. (it has doubled in the last couple of years- but to have stayed with inflation would have to be in the 20$/bushel range.)
Farmers (and Ranchers) are some of the hardest-working, most intelligent, most generous, least appreciated people I have known in my life. I'm with the previous poster, just because your family farm is 5000 acres- doesn't make it less of a family farm. Give these people a break. Economies of scale have required that farms grow in area or die.
I know many farmer "land millionairs" that clear less than 35k a year in farming.
In September 2005 the price of corn was $1.73 and the parity price was $7.02. Corn hit $7.03 here locally July 3, but has since dropped back to around $3.50. The input complex is concentrated and using that power to gobble up profits, so parity is rising and $7.03 is no longer parity.
Studies I've seen found that most economies of size are achieved on a 1-2 person farm, which varies in acreage depending on geography and value added. Out on the plains that would be larger. Farms have lost livestock as giant feedlots and animal factories have been been subsidized by below cost feedgrains ($1.73 corn!), so many farms have lost livestock (value added) and tried to get bigger with low priced grains. Organic farming often doubles the price received, so less land is needed. Organic costs keep falling relative to conventional. In 2006 organic corn looked cheaper (even without sales premiums, though the two methods of computation weren't directly comparable) at Iowa State University Extension, and with the new higher costs that will be even more true.
A family farm is defined not by family ownership, though that is one factor, but by being family sized and structured. Numerous studies have found that as farm size grows, communities deteriorate in multiple ways. (See writings of Goldschmidt, Labao, or Ikerd).
Yes, farmers are great people and need more money per acre.
"would have to be in the 20$/bushel range."
If I remember correctly that's about what I paid this summer at the farmers market for yellow sweet corn. Don't buy that speckled corn you find at the grocery stores it's about as tasteless as water. Probably because that's what it's full of.
Support your local farmers market.
Rickster
The only reason corn was kept artificially "low" was government subsidies. King Corn is a powerful lobbyist and I was angry that Clinton allowed that so-called "Freedom to Farm" Act to pass as it was nothing but a giveaway to Big Agri. You should look up the articles Congressman Ron Paul wrote on lewrockwell.com. Get a load of this article:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/masterjohn3.html
The next time someone complains about global warming, you can shoot back and say "Well, then support small/family farms !"
Corn prices were kept low because of a lack of price floors (with adequate supply management), not because of subsidies. Price floors are usually needed because corn and other commodities lack price responsiveness on both supply and demand sides. There is no magic formula that raises prices when subsidies are removed.
King Corn? Corn farmers are weak lobbyists, as the low prices show. Corn cereal and feed mills and other processors (including ethanol) and exporters and giant livestock feedlots and animal factories (also corn buyers) are powerful lobbyists. "Big Agri" is the above, not farmers receiving subsidies. The bigger the farmer receiving subsidies, the bigger the losses in the marketplace, with some exception for economies of size, not that big farms are good, they're not.
Ron Paul has some great ideas, but does he go with a free market ideology against the facts about the lack of price responsiveness in agriculture? You're right about Clinton. Democrats Harkin, Wellstone etc. opposed Clinton on this, but in 2002 supported a Freedom to Farm type bill. And again in 2008. Most progressives have done the same in supporting Kind-Flake, Grassley-Dorgan and other amendments that preserve the Republican (from Gingrich Contract for America) Freedom to Farm approach. Actually Reagan and Nixon (with Earl Butz) had better farm bills than that, in that they had price floors and some supply management. The price floors were set too low, but at least they existed. Not so in most recent progressive proposals. But see the National Family Farm Coalition.
We've been squandering money by the trillions. It's time to stop losing money on farm commodity exports (as it always has been)!
The day of expanding economies increasingly reveals the marginalization, the 'planned obsolesence' mantra, use, abuse, deny, demonize. Then blame the increasing creeping upward trickle of impoverishment of biodiversity, education and virtually anything except that which feeds fear and militarization. The thanatocracy's bones are showing - falling out of closets left and right.
"Our nearly 50-year-old "export-oriented, globally competitive" farm pricing policy is intended to gain markets by undercutting prices paid to farmers abroad. This amounts to Welfare For Agri-business.
The theme of "growing the economy" through exports ignores the experience of farmers. Non-farmers often confuse agriculture and agri-business."
The oligarchy controls government, banks, corporations, Agri-biz, in fact everything. Why let them hide behind their institutions and not place responsibility squarely on their lap?
"We need to get back to eating our meat and/or diary based on animals raised on the pasture and fed grass or even hemp."
**no, we need to eliminate meat and dairy from our diets so as not to destroy wildlife and waste water and crop land.
Wolves were driven to extinction in North America because they went after livestock(as natural born carnivores it makes sense, it makes less sense for humans who have no natural hunting ability or tools to be raising livestock).
You want a return to that?
Small farm advocates are bad at mathematics. The human population is much greater than it was in 1900, and the amount of available agricultural land has diminished too.
If you hate Nature and humanity, advocate meat and dairy.
You will succeed.
If you care about the planet and moral integrity, advocate veganism.
No matter how you do the numbers, you save crop land and water, and reduce the misery in the world by a hefty sum.
Dont think like Sarah Palin, pardoning a turkey then giving an interview outside a farmhouse where turkeys are screaming as they get their throats cut to appease an unnecessary diet.
Livestock are important in sustainable agriculture and in farm ecomomics worldwide. Livestock are the main "value added" to other crops on farms. Unfortunately low, below cost price floors have subsidized giant feedlots and animal factories with below cost grain to take this away from farms. (2.5 billion in below cost gains, 1997-2005 for both Tyson and Smithfield according to Tufts University's "Industrial Livestock Companies’ Gains from Low Feed Prices, 1997-2005," online.)
Hogs have long been known as the great "mortgage burner."
Without livestock farmers plow up pastures and hay fields and shorten resource conserving crop rotations. Instead of small grain/hay/corn/beans/corn for example, they go to just corn and beans. Without hay (alfalfa or clover) they lose the ability to get all their nitrogen from the air. Weeds and bugs specialize, causing more need for or inclination toward pesticides. Livestock can graze on corn stover, reducing volunteer corn in next year's soybean fields. Livestock grazing is a kind of draft power. They harvest their own feed and spread their own fertilizer without fossil fuels. New methods maximize this.
Look at the great work the Heifer Project is doing in helping poor farmers get livestock for value added economic development.
Really though, as Charles Hampden-Turner has argued (Charting the Corporate Mind?), wealth creation is about value reconciliation, not just value added. All too often in industrial agriculture values conflict and it's value subtracted. As Wendell Berry argued, they took a solution, livestock on the land, and divided it into two problems, pollution at the factory livestock facility and lack of fertilizer at the crop farm. But there are really many more problems caused by lack of livestock diversification, as I've indicated above in my description of various livestock reconciliations. Sheep are great weeders! Goats are used to clear brush. I've heard of goats being used as weeders out west on thistles and such.
On math, the problem in agriculture has long been, and likely will remain, oversupply. Given our lack of price floors, as called for in the article, this results in low prices (with lack of price responsiveness), causing massive world poverty.
"Goats are used to clear brush. I've heard of goats being used as weeders out west on thistles and such."
Goats are far superior to any mechanical system for controlling weeds and brush. There's people round my neck of the woods that raise goats and hire them out just for that reason. For some reason they just won't eat the grass that the cows like. Young goats taste like venison too. I don't recommend eating an old goat though. :^)
Rickster
Wolves are not extinct in North America. Not even close.
The eating of meat and dairy products off Canadian farms has been with us for a few hundred years and we have plenty of wolves.
The FACT is a family farm that raises Cattle, Hogs, Chickens , grains and produce in a mixed manner is about as enviromentally a friendly an instituion one can design.
Furthermore, done properly the combined caloric output of such a farm exceeds that of like farms that produce only vegetables or grains per acre of land.
It was the conversion FROM the small family farm to large scale industrial operations that decreased total food supply while maximizing profits to the operators of those firms.
Excellent points. But how many real family farms do we have left? Are they enough?
No they are not enough. I would point out that there was a documented Conspiracy in both the United States and Canada to destroy the family farms.
The family farmer was an independent businessman. They were very hard to control politically and in both Canada and the United States were veyr politically active AND powerful.
In Canada the various farmers parties evolved into the very Socialist NDP.
They were hard to control because they produced their own food and could not be fired. The Captains of Industry wanted to control the food supply and felt by destroying the family farm and driving many millions off the land, they could not only get control of the food supply, but would have access to cheap labor for their factories.
How do we turn back the clock? We have to reverse the trend of Corporatism and the trend towards the monopolization of the means of production in the hands of a few.
I will state this as a fact . Any one acre of the land on the farm I grew up on, where we raised grain, produce, cattle chicken and hogs had richer soil, more filled with nutrients without the use of artifical fertilizers then any acre of land you can find in California where they grew nothing but Vegetables.
Our tomatoes also tasted like tomatoes.
And we did not have to drain rivers to irrigate our land.
Economically it might not have been as viable, but this was by design of the powers that be.
Pk
Conspiracy? Well, yes, the Committee for Economic Development, (a corporate think tank sponsored by a long list of corporations,) in "An Adaptive Program for Agriculture," (1962) called for getting rid of one third of U.S. farmers, (well, "excess resources, "mainly labor)," in five years by lowering price floors. It wasn't quite secret though. You can find it in libraries.
"Our tomatoes also tasted like tomatoes."
Oh so true. We buy our tomatoes from a local farmer and when we do get one from the grocery...UGH! More water than meat and insipid.
We do have a number of local small farms starting up here in Texas, some wineries and of course we have never lost the small rancher here.
This seems to be something that would be well worth pursuing as a policy goal. Tax breaks aimed specifically at the small farmer, aids and loans to encourage it. We actually had (or have) a small agriculture dept at one time.
How about the money saved in transport if more was grown locally?
"I will state this as a fact . Any one acre of the land on the farm I grew up on, where we raised grain, produce, cattle chicken and hogs had richer soil, more filled with nutrients without the use of artifical fertilizers then any acre of land you can find in California where they grew nothing but Vegetables."
I certainly believe that.
Our farm program is a disgrace, that I know. 228 Billion tyhis year for what? AMD to make more money growing cantalope with illegal labor in South Texas and Mexico so the real texas farmer's can't get a break.
Texas? You once had Jim Hightower as Commissioner of Agriculture working on the goals you listed.
Brad Wilson
Yep and he was making a bit of progress too, then we got Goodhair Perry when the Democrats lost the Gov.'s mansion. He did zippy do dah. A precursor to his performance as Gov.
I think the Democrats wrote him off because to some of them he sounded "too liberal". The Texas Democrats are generally very divided from what I remember. Hightower voted Nader in 2000 I recall.
Carla Waters
The Republican party targeted Texas and the Democrats didn't pay enough attention. They swept Dem's out of office. Thats why Jim lost. Ever since then, the Democratic party has written Texas off and provides no help for Democratic candidates, little money.
If they would look they would have noticed thast texas voted almost 50% for Obama. But if they were smart we wouldn't have had 8 years of Bush nor as our Governor.
Thomas More
I thought that the TX Democrats wrote him off because they thought that somehow his pro-populism would somehow look "too liberal" to them and upset their stupid fundraising efforts. I remember the same thing happening in Florida in 1998 when the "conservative" Democrats with their boss Buzz Ritchie worked to oust Willie Logan from leadership in the Florida House of Representatives. Buzz went on the TV and defended his move even when the black community rose in anger and went independent and were even prepared to vote for Jeb Bush of all people ! Those "conservative" Democrats blamed Willie Logan for being "too liberal" and not raising enough cash for their already losing campaigns. The Florida Democrats have been shackled to minority status ever since then.
I saw the election results too on uselectionatlas.org and cnn.com/ELECTION/2008 and it's amazing that Mccain pretty much stayed at 4.5 million while Obama went up from Kerry's 2.8 million to 3.5 million and Dubya won 3.7 million in 2000. And you probably already know that Texas is now the state with the 2nd largest number of electoral votes. Despite all that, I seriously doubt the Democrats on the national level will even give your state a chance at a time when they're already writing off portions of the deep south including my parents' state of LA. After the election, the media and pundits crowed about Obama winning all the large states except for Texas so my guess is that unless the so-called polls show your state in a tight race between Obama and whoever the Republican nominee in 2012 is, they'll just skip it like they've been doing for 16 years. The only way I can see them even coming close to campaigning there is if by some quirk of fate, CA and/or NY somehow goes "red" or FL goes back to red and out of reach but I doubt that'll ever happen at least not for the next decade. And since Obama got 365 EVs to Mccains 173 EVs, I'm afraid your state is off the campaigning radar. Don't forget that the Republicans also targetted Florida and even in 2003 California though it stayed blue in 2004 despite the 2003 recall. I think it is unfair for either party to take electoral votes for granted just like that. Maybe Obama will include your state in 2012 if he's really interested in helping the TX Democrats out. Who knows?
P.S.: I hear that Jeb Bush's influential grip in FL is fading these days. Is there any chance of Dubya's influential grip in TX fading?
Carla Waters
Pretty fair analysis really. Its a great Democratic mistake. Texas is changing rapidly and not because of the Hispanics. The Republicans privitisation efforts have hurt many Texans.
If we'd had any attention last election, I wouldn't have been surprised if Perry would have lost. Dubya doesn't have a lot of influence here. Most were ready for him to be gone as Gov. He's not really a Texan truth be known.
The Democrats are fools if they think this election signaled anything but a total disgust of the Republicans. The biggest mistake the Democrats are making is writing off the Southern states. The political power obviously is going to be in the South and West/midwest in the future. California is already in decline.
"Maybe Obama will include your state in 2012"
I think he is smart enough to. Look at the fiscal status of the states one by one and it will speak volumes about future power and political strength in my opinion.
Molly Ivins always thought it was something personal between Jim and the Democratic leadership in the legislature. But you could be right. There was that talk.
"California is already in decline."
I don't know what you mean by that. After all, that state has the largest number of electoral votes and I don't think that's about to change in the forseeable future. I take it that the GOP can safely write off that state given the way Dubya was able to steal both 2000 and 2004.
As for including TX, I went back to uselectionatlas.org and noticed one thing about the large states. Prior to 2008, the Democrats would win most of the large states and even some of their constant blue ones such as MD, MI, PA, WI, MN, and IL in a pecular manner. The counties that are heavily populated would go Democrat by thumping majorities to more than offset the heavily Republican rural precincts. For FL, MO, and OH, it's not quite as easy and as for TX I notice that the state population and voting for the most part is evenly spread out. In the recent times, starting in 2005 in my state of Virginia, the Democrats appear to be adopting a strategy of improving the urban turnout and working on the exurban and suburban areas which pretty much makes it easier to write off the rural areas although Obama did not do such a thing when he campaigned in each of the states, especially NC, VA, FL, and OH he aimed for amazingly. I noticed that Houston and the suburbs surrounding Dallas county where I noticed the most number of votes went heavily Mccain. I take it that if the Democrats had actually taken the time to visit those areas, they would have come closer and possibly even taken the state although I still believe Obama would have to make inroads in the rural areas especially the ones near that godforsaken state of OK, correct? I cannot understand why Obama bothered to fool around in AZ, MT and the Dakotas which appeared to be way out of reach for him even though he came close in MT and yet he never bothered to give TX a look. You folks in TX had better put pressure on Obama and the party to give your state a serious look especially with the NAFTA Superhighway on its way towards further ruining your state by transporting illegals all the way choking Texans with higher toll fees.
As for Molly Ivins, I miss her a lot and so does my mother. Is there any hope of getting a replacement for her in your state because she looks harder to replace?
"I take it that if the Democrats had actually taken the time to visit those areas, they would have come closer and possibly even taken the state although I still believe Obama would have to make inroads in the rural areas especially the ones near that godforsaken state of OK, correct?"
I think you are quite correct. Actually East Texas cast a lot of votes for Obama, he did better than expected in the rural areas. The suburbs around Dallas and Houston are so Republican they are Flaming Red!
Rural areas of the South would surprise many if they bothered to take a closer look, but unfortunately most of the Democratic heirachy are not that bright. They don't seem to realize how muvch has changed.
As to California I have believe its going to lose population in the near future based on the economic flight from there.
"especially with the NAFTA Superhighway on its way towards further ruining your state by transporting illegals all the way choking Texans with higher toll fees."
They are running into opposition locally that they didn't expect. All of the regional meetings they held...folks showed up and said "in a pigs eye you will" There is heavy opposition to it. If the Republicans here try to push it through, the Democrats will have a golden opportunity.
"As for Molly Ivins, I miss her a lot and so does my mother. Is there any hope of getting a replacement for her in your state because she looks harder to replace?"
No chance at all. Molly was one of a kind, unique in both her brilliant way of stating complicated things simply and her utter contempt for BS. A true Texas treasure whom we all sorely miss. God bless her. The legislative gallery won't be the same next year.
What we need is more victory gardens, less lawns, more organic horticulture and open wild spaces for guerilla gardens. We need to get away from the oil based agriculture and look to our local economies instead.
I grew some squash this year in a pile of grass clipping and leaves mixed together. I didn't use any fertilizer and I didn't water it very often. I got ten times as much squash from it as I got from the one I planted in the ground. Tomatoes are great that way too. Next year I intend to expand the method to peppers. Who knows I may never lift a shovel again.
Rickster
Did you grow it from seeds or from already growing squash?
I started my seeds in a very small green house. Next season I will probably start all my seed that way even okra and lettuce. I use a method called pinch planting.
Rickster
Sounds cool...I can't wait to finish college and start off my real life the right way.
Here! Here!
Thomas Jefferson had a point in his praise for the "yeoman farmer".
In many cases farm goods are now sold at less than 50% of parity, and this is 2008, not 1933. Unfortunately there are far fewer farms now than the 1930's and US farm policy seems intent on driving even more farmers off the land.
The "enclosure" of the commons in Britain was perhaps the first organized effort to put public land in the hands of the elite, certainly not the last. Continuing phases of enclosure from market control to seed patenting to cloning are ongoing. By any measure in any country small farms and local food production offer the best hope for feeding society and providing healthy economies.
The national Farmers Union newsletter (11/05, online) "Farm Price Barometer" (for 9/05) showed parity ratios of 25-27 % for corn, cotton, rice, peanuts, and grain sorghum, and 32% for soybeans and wheat. Parity is also a standard of "fair trade" and "living wage."
And small/family farms can do it again. We need to get back to eating our meat and/or diary based on animals raised on the pasture and fed grass or even hemp. We also need to cut down on those corporate factory farms which take up more crude oil to build and maintain in addition to all that corn-feed and anti-biotics which consume more oil. I'm writing my reps to get rid of the subsidies for Big Agri and King Corn. Corn burns the most amounts of fossil fuels and sucks up more water. No wonder this country has been corn-fed for about 50 years !
The subsidy issue is a false issue. In USDA Economic Research Service data, US farmers lost money on corn for a quarter century (1981-2006 except 1996). The reason wasn't subsidies, they were compensations for the massive losses. The reason was that farm commodities lack price responsiveness on both supply and demand sides, and U.S. policy reduced price floors and supply management 1953-1997 and then eliminated them. Subsidies impact price and supply only a little and only indirectly, sometimes decreasing price a few precent and increasing supply a slightly, and sometimes increasing price and decreasing supply, depending on how planting shifts a little. See a summary in Tufts Universities "Paradox of Agricultural Subsidies," page 21 (online). Small grains fared worse than corn. Yes, get rid of subsidies, but with price floors and supply management and also price ceilings and commodity reserves with the National Family Farm Coalition, nffc dot net.
Sustainability, though, is the way to return to family farming, as you say. Organic farming uses much less fossil fuel according to a 1970s study by Barry Commoner, William Lockeretz and Roger Blobaum. Another five fold reduction may be possible with "organic no till," if it can be made viable. Recently costs of production have skyrocketed in the US, making organic cheaper, probably, in many cases, even without premium prices.
With corn being put to too many bad uses thanks to King Corn and its powerful lobbying, everything's a mess. If you want to see a reduction in healthcare costs, switch from conventional corn-fed milk to grass-fed milk and corn-fed meat to pasture-raised type. It'll be a little more expensive but it will save you thousands of dollars in healthcare costs. Just ask Dr. Ron Paul. The Republicans and even the Democrats ought to listen to him on this matter.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/masterjohn3.html
Actually grass fed cows are cheaper to raise. The initial cost is higher as you improve your land for better soil. Yes soil can be improved it takes a couple of years but it can be done. Then you have to manage it through rotation of the cattle among different fields. It's not that difficult to do and it's self sustaining.
Rickster
Thanks. I don't think I'll be able to get me a cow now that Loudoun County up here in VA is changing from farmland to suburban sprawl. I could move further west to Fauquier County but that would make my commute to Washington even longer and harder everyday.