Thanks to the good old American government, the farm industry has become yet another "rich get richer" capitalist failure. Farmers can sit around and grow whatever crop they feel is best for them, and the government will rush in to "save" them by providing subsidies, setting price floors, and placing tariffs on foreign imports. In 2007, grain, soybean, and cotton farmers earned record net income, and received an additional $5 billion in direct payment crop subsidies, at the expense of taxpayers. The top 10% of recipients collected 60% of the money. While direct payments are limited to $40,000 per person or $80,000 per couple, large subsidized farming operations with complex, interlocking business organizations and multiple owners routinely enable individuals to collect up to $80,000 apiece each year in direct payment subsidies under USDA rules governing subsidies for partnerships, corporations, joint ventures and trusts, with a pending provision to increase those limits to 60,000/120,000. These payouts are given without any regard to the individuals’ economic state or the condition of the Farm industry. Farmers who grow corn, a crop grown mainly for ethanol, a component of gasoline, benefit from a 51c/gal federal subsidy in addition to state and local subsidies, independent of market conditions. They are also protected by a 54c/gal tariff on imported ethanol.
These government programs are exploited for the benefit of the already wealthy, at the expense of the working class taxpayers. We were once a country that was the catalyst for innovation, now we are a country where everyone sits around waiting for their handout, who then complain when the free ride is over. Removal of these subsidies and tariffs might cause a scare in the short term, but in the long run it will promote new ideas in the farming industry, and more than likely lead us to better agricultural techniques, stronger and more fertile crops, and a larger overall supply of goods. International trade will flourish, and *gasp* we might help end global hunger by being a little less greedy. These policies are relics from the depression era, where 25% of the population lived and worked on 6,000,000 farms. In modern times, only about 2% of our population lives on farms with 157,000 farms producing almost 75% of the sales. It’s about time to end these programs that are only kept alive through exploitative lobbying to keep what is essentially free money coming into the hands of the wealthy.
source:
Environmental Working Group: Farm Subsidy Database: http://farm.ewg.org/
