We Are Now Officially Screwed...Loss Of CRP...

Farmer Welfare.......Holy crap I've heard it all now. Personally that statement really bothers me but I will keep those thoughts to myself. I guess the farmer is an easy target these days for some reason. He gets some agricultural subsidies (he also works his a** off) your local crack dealer and his family of kids also get agricultural subsidies in the form of food stamps, WIC, and welfare ...that's right...it's all under the umbrella of the Dept. of Agriculture. I know where my food and clothes come from...and it's not the slobs you see on the street corners or wondering through Wal-Mart in the middle of the day. If my farmers can apply for a program to keep them going year to year than I will gladly support it.. they do a hell of alot more this country than the majority of individuals pulling money from the Dept of Agriculture. You want to let their business fail due to a dip in commodity prices go ahead...just don't complain when you pay $$$$ for your food. These are not businesses that can fail then just start up again when the market is better. I guess to some it's an even wash out....pay the farmer subsidies to keep us in cheap food or not pay subsidies and pay him welfare when he's out of work. Then we all suffer with higher priced food and clothes. I'm sure I'll draw some fire for my views on this but you guys that want to continually bash farmers really bother me. A farmer being a socialist.. :huh: ...where do you live. I'm guessing it's not in a farming community and if it is I'm even more confused.

As far as you guys loosing CRP acres to corn.... that land belongs to the farmer and it is HIS choice to remove it if he desires (for corn) or leave it in for the CRP write off. Given time it MAY go back to CRP. It all depends on commodity prices. Fetilizer costs will be the limiting factor in corn acreage. I have farmers that have already quit growing corn (even with it being $5.00/bushel) because of increased fertilizer and irrigation costs.

My apologies ahead of time if I offend anyone but farmer bashing hits close to home in this house.

What ruffled feathers was one statement "Farmer Welfare". It appears that you where aiming more for big corporate farms in your recent post. In that case I could not agree more..there are major abuses of many farm subsidy programs as well as most other government programs. I deal will small growers in this area...farms range from 250 - 1500 acres with 3000 being a very large grower. CRP has never been a major program here as it was when I worked in Texas but other NRC equip programs help out alot. Primarily cost share projects on irrigation ponds, converting to strip till and planting winter cover crops. All of these practices are beneficial to the environment and help the small farmer. Handouts...if you had to label it then I guess you could call it that but long term benefits help growers be more efficient in their practice so all benefit from it. Since it is tax dollars that fund this I would say farmers are paying into the system through taxes so they are doing there part there. Since it sounds like you know the business then you are also aware of check-off programs but there is no need to get into that here.

I am not in a grain area..cotton and peanuts...and yes government involvement in both have screwed it up royally. Most recently the government bought out quota on peanuts it had alotted in the 40-50's with guarenteed prices. Great no more government money going out...I watched some farms go out of business because they could not farm efficiently enough to grow the crop at a cheaper price. SHould they have stayed in business..no..but it was very painful to watch.

We are in two different areas of the country and you are seeing abuse on a very large scale and benefits not going where they were intended to go. It was never set up to keep you in business..just to help out a little when markets slide or as in the CRP issue to remove poor to marginal land form the crop rotation (that is a good program in my book) but it has been abused by some crooks that found loopholes and etc. Unfortunately most all government programs set up for help are abused. As far as the government being too involved with agri-business ..I AGREE..they are also way too involved with our personal lives and you are correct in that it was not set that way by out founding fathers. But that is a whole other issue and there's not enough time to flesh that out.

Going out of town..I'll check back in a week.