Thank you Beth and Sarah! The podcast just begins to open this can of worms. It’s appalling that we have 4 of our six members of Congress on the ag committees and it appears that they are all sitting with their hands folded in their laps watching the devastation. They are in the front row seats. Shame on them!
There are some awesome things here, but they miss the core policy issue. (Sarah surely knows about it, but Beth didn’t explain it in her book.) Farm debt has been record high, (higher than the 80s,) since Trump 1.0. A key policy factor behind debt and low prices and lack of growing less corn is that Republicans ended supply reduction/minimum price floor programs in 1996. It went down, more & more, 1953-1995, prior to that. The income + subsidies of the few crops like corn and soybeans has not been favored. Rather they’ve been cheaper (inc. + subsidies as % of parity) than 45 fruits and vegetables, beef, hay and dairy, (counting no subsidies for these,) but all have gone down a lot over 7 decades. Reduced price floors = massively subsidizing CAFOs (mainly paid by corn & soybean farmers, not taxpayers). Most Iowa & other states farmers have lost all hogs, dairy, poultry and cattle over 7 decades, but all had multiple kinds in 1950, to then lose sustainable livestock crops, pasture, hay & oats. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-decline-of-farming-in-iowa-part-2-farmer-impacts/251999871 Survivors got off-farm jobs, so less labor for diversity, more capital. Resulting tax loss farming has driven up land values. IFSC should start opposing the massive farmer-paid subsidies to CAFOs & support supply reduction programs that farmers alone have supported. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IaANx08G8&list=PLA1E706EFA90D1767&index=3 Price floor programs brought. us out of the 30s Depression, but similar proposals were rejected by Republicans in the 80s. https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/. On top of Trump we have Republican oversupply. https://blog.ucs.org/kathryn-anderson/why-planting-too-much-corn-hurts-farmers-and-the-environment/
At the center of Iowa's current farm problem is the mostly ignored reality that farmers are not provided a quasi-public mechanism to respond to commodity market conditions, i.e. manage production/supplies to meet demand at levels that assure prices to cover costs of production while sufficient acres are devoted to robust land and water stewardship.
Very true. The supply and demand is all handled at the multinational corporation level (ie-Cargill, ADM, Dreyfus and Bunge in the case of grain)--meaning that it is always in their best interest for there to be an oversupply of raw materials. Farmers have few ways to individually store products long term.
. . . a parity program, to stabilize family-scale operations, would likely require trade agreement(s) for a measure of national food sovereignty, to halt farm sector race to the bottom (overproduction).
What we don't have is a realistic ag bill proposal that will be healthy for the farmers, for the environment and for the public. Obviously our congressional representation isn't doing anything in this direction. I suspect that there isn't an answer under capitalism. If there is I would like to see it. What should be in the ag bill?
Thank you Beth and Sarah! The podcast just begins to open this can of worms. It’s appalling that we have 4 of our six members of Congress on the ag committees and it appears that they are all sitting with their hands folded in their laps watching the devastation. They are in the front row seats. Shame on them!
There are some awesome things here, but they miss the core policy issue. (Sarah surely knows about it, but Beth didn’t explain it in her book.) Farm debt has been record high, (higher than the 80s,) since Trump 1.0. A key policy factor behind debt and low prices and lack of growing less corn is that Republicans ended supply reduction/minimum price floor programs in 1996. It went down, more & more, 1953-1995, prior to that. The income + subsidies of the few crops like corn and soybeans has not been favored. Rather they’ve been cheaper (inc. + subsidies as % of parity) than 45 fruits and vegetables, beef, hay and dairy, (counting no subsidies for these,) but all have gone down a lot over 7 decades. Reduced price floors = massively subsidizing CAFOs (mainly paid by corn & soybean farmers, not taxpayers). Most Iowa & other states farmers have lost all hogs, dairy, poultry and cattle over 7 decades, but all had multiple kinds in 1950, to then lose sustainable livestock crops, pasture, hay & oats. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/the-decline-of-farming-in-iowa-part-2-farmer-impacts/251999871 Survivors got off-farm jobs, so less labor for diversity, more capital. Resulting tax loss farming has driven up land values. IFSC should start opposing the massive farmer-paid subsidies to CAFOs & support supply reduction programs that farmers alone have supported. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IaANx08G8&list=PLA1E706EFA90D1767&index=3 Price floor programs brought. us out of the 30s Depression, but similar proposals were rejected by Republicans in the 80s. https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/. On top of Trump we have Republican oversupply. https://blog.ucs.org/kathryn-anderson/why-planting-too-much-corn-hurts-farmers-and-the-environment/
At the center of Iowa's current farm problem is the mostly ignored reality that farmers are not provided a quasi-public mechanism to respond to commodity market conditions, i.e. manage production/supplies to meet demand at levels that assure prices to cover costs of production while sufficient acres are devoted to robust land and water stewardship.
Very true. The supply and demand is all handled at the multinational corporation level (ie-Cargill, ADM, Dreyfus and Bunge in the case of grain)--meaning that it is always in their best interest for there to be an oversupply of raw materials. Farmers have few ways to individually store products long term.
. . . a parity program, to stabilize family-scale operations, would likely require trade agreement(s) for a measure of national food sovereignty, to halt farm sector race to the bottom (overproduction).
What we don't have is a realistic ag bill proposal that will be healthy for the farmers, for the environment and for the public. Obviously our congressional representation isn't doing anything in this direction. I suspect that there isn't an answer under capitalism. If there is I would like to see it. What should be in the ag bill?