Last December, I noticed a deposit of $3,089.80 in our checking account. What a nice Christmas gift!<\/p>\n
It was a payment from the Farm Service Agency. I dug in my memory to recall that months ago I filled out an application for a PARP payment based on some combination of farm income, yields, price, and maybe the price of tea in China. \u201cPARP\u201d stands for something. You can look that up.<\/p>\n
PARP is a leftover program from the Covid era, stupid Trump policies, and excessive weather events. Weather is something farmers are always fighting with. Covid and Trump were unique maladies.<\/p>\n
The three grand came at a useful time when we\u2019re paying the end of last year\u2019s expenses and the beginning of next year\u2019s. We\u2019re also selling crops out of the field. A lot of money is flying in and out. We hope there\u2019s some left over at the end.<\/p>\n
Every time you taxpayers send us money, I tell Pam and then speculate how much \u201cbig\u201d farmers are getting. By \u201cbig,\u201d I don\u2019t mean overweight. I mean big in acres. I am a \u201csmall\u201d farmer in acres. If I got $3,000, I\u2019m guessing big farmers got, what, $50,000, $100,000?<\/p>\n
Which leads us to a current farm matter. Every five years, Congress is required to craft a new Farm Bill. The 2018 Farm Bill expired in 2023. We are living with a series of extensions until a new one can be passed by Congress and signed by the President.<\/p>\n
Writing a Farm Bill is a difficult process in normal times, when thoughtful, intelligent legislators are willing to compromise and seek the larger good. Now that the two parties have sunk to acting like ill-behaved four-year-olds, it\u2019s almost impossible.<\/p>\n
From journalist Allison Winter: \u201cHistorically, farm bills have brought together lawmakers across party lines, uniting on regional interests. The massive bill stitches together support for agriculture producers, energy and conservation programs on farmland and food and nutrition programs for families in need.\u201d<\/p>\n
And from Carl-Johan Karlsson: \u201cGone are the days when politicians brokered deals across the aisle. Instead, polarization has transformed the democratic process, which once thrived on compromise and respectful dialogue, into a winner-takes-all battleground of dysfunction and animosity.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had plenty of dysfunction the two years they\u2019ve been working on the Farm Bill. The House Agriculture Committee passed a version in May that was basically a Republican wish list with more money for farmers and less money for poor people. It wasn\u2019t a particularly useful gesture, but at least they could tell their constituents they were doing something in Washington besides taking up space.<\/p>\n
A Farm Bill will have to be hammered out after the election, even if the parties involved would rather hammer each other on the head.<\/p>\n
As part of the process, the major farm groups lobby for various positions. The American Farm Bureau is sort of the Republican side, and the National Farmers Union is sort of the Democratic side. I belong to both because I like going to meetings in the winter when I\u2019m bored.<\/p>\n
The commodity groups are also major players: the National Corn Growers Association, the National Pork Producers Council, etc. There\u2019s even an American Emu Association protecting emu growers\u2019 interests. I want to say right here that I\u2019m fully for emu rights.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a long-time reader of this column (hi Pam!), you remember that I was involved in the creation of a lesser-known farm organization in 2012: Producers Opposed to Obscene Payments, aka P.O.O.P., was founded in response to large direct payments going to well-heeled big farmers.<\/p>\n
Direct farm payments ended in the 2013 Farm Bill. Members of P.O.O.P. like to take credit for that. But, alas, those payments were replaced with increasingly large subsidies for crop insurance. The leaders of P.O.O.P. considered changing our name to Producers Intent on Stopping Subsidies. We decided that wasn\u2019t a good idea.<\/p>\n
A large problem, the problem, with both direct payments and crop insurance subsidies is there have never been any practical limits on them. I\u2019ve written about this before; It bugs me enough to harp on it. There have been \u201ccaps\u201d put on payments and subsidies, but they\u2019ve never been so strictly applied or cleverly written as to prevent large operators from benefiting handsomely from government largesse.<\/p>\n
Under the current Farm Bill, the government pays $10 billion to crop insurance. $8 billion goes to pay about 62% of farmers\u2019 premiums. $2 billion goes to cover costs to fourteen private insurance companies. According to the General Accounting Office, those companies make \u201cabove normal\u201d profits. Guess who becomes a major lobbying group for continuing subsidies?<\/p>\n
The top ten percent of farmers in sales receive 68 percent of crop insurance subsidies. The lion\u2019s share of those farmers are in the south, which has always had an overly large voice in farm policy. Ask Collin Peterson about that.<\/p>\n
Collin spent his career championing northern farmers until voters decided he wasn\u2019t appropriately beholden to Donald Trump. He was also willing to work across the aisle. This was before the aisle was fitted with barbed wire.<\/p>\n
I have no problems with any farmer wanting to operate a lot of acres. With advancements in technology, it\u2019s clear that less and less of us will be running more and more acres. \u201cBig\u201d farmers are as likely to be good citizens and neighbors as \u201csmall\u201d farmers. In some cases, they can be better stewards of the land.<\/p>\n
The question, as it has been for decades, should the government be in the business of reducing their risk? Shouldn\u2019t Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and Brad Finstad and Michelle Fischbach consider that? They might not get votes for it, but doing something overdue like putting real limits in the Farm Bill would be the right thing. Doing the right thing still counts for something.<\/p>\n
I am not anti-government. In a democratic capitalist system like ours, good government is essential. But we should constantly ask, can it be better?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible to imagine the billions of dollars spent supporting farmers going for more good. Maybe contributing to a more diverse agriculture across the Midwest. Maybe we could grow more of our own food instead of shipping it here from California and South America. Some of the billions could really be supporting small family farms.<\/p>\n
We can imagine it. Why can\u2019t we do it?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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