A DIFFERING VIEW/Farm Bill’s goal is to put affordable food on the table
Often farmers hear the whine that farm subsidies are government waste benefiting a few at the expense of many. The whine goes to a roar every five years when the Farm Bill comes to renewal (“Farm Bill scandal,” Nov. 2). In fact, the Farm Bill is about food. Food for Americans that is safe, abundant, healthy and affordable.
Most of the Farm Bill’s spending is destined for school lunch programs for needy kids, and food stamps for the working poor.
Americans owe their good health as much to safe, abundant food as they do to medical advances, although we seldom think in those terms. And why should we; we take food for granted.
Colorado agriculture generates $5 billion annually at the farm gate, the third largest contributor to the state’s economic engine, just behind tourism and banking. There are 31 million acres of ranch and farmland with 2.5 million cattle and 5 million acres of crops like wheat, corn, barley
and apples grown in Colorado.
This year Colorado corn growers will supply the raw product to power Colorado cars more than 5 million miles on ethanol, the clean-burning, American-made transportation fuel.
Despite all the squealing about subsidies, a gallon of ethanol is supported by a 51-cent tax incentive to the fuel blender. It’s usually farmers who take the blame, yet not one penny goes to farmers or to the ethanol plants.
Environmental activism is nothing revolutionary for Colorado farmers. Their land is their livelihood and their life. They do whatever it takes to protect it from harm to preserve it for themselves and their children.
Think about this the next time you sit at the table for a meal, or are moved to complain about the Farm Bill.
Byron Weathers, who lives in Yuma County, is president of the Colorado Corn Grower Association.
Do you know how many gallons of water it takes to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, It is the most water intensive product, propagandized as a fuel saving item, ever to be foisted on people. Are you aware how many cars can't use it or if they do miles per gallon don't even come close to gasoline because the vast majority of internal combustion engines are not designed to use it. And it is the huge food corporations, not small farmers, that profit from it.
And, the biggest food producers are hugh corporations who's businesses handle all aspects of production from land aquisition, mostly from small independent farmers who can't compete with them, to packaging and marketing the end product. these hugh companies will get the vast majority of the farm bill money, not the small independent family farms.
And to say that most of the farm bill money is destined for school lunch programs for needy kids and food stamps is a groos exageration and is an intentional deception from the propaganda book of those huge food entities.
Posted by Allen Campbell on November 7, 2007 05:53 AMThe federal farm subsidy program is steeped in racism. Cash-cow for Vatican, Mexican gov't, GOP, etc. Again, blacks are paying taxes into a prgram, where they are excluded from economically participating. This programs reminds of 1965, where I was paying taxes, but I couldn't attend the University of North Carolina, just because of the skin I'm in. I got the same same treatment from the NC National Guard, who also wasn't accepting black enlistees. The Guard was a NAM sanctuary and country club for whites only (Bush, Quayle, Barry-VISTA, etc.).
Blacks are also funding farm subsidies only to be screwed by criminal illegal Mexicans. US Sen. Shamnesty Salazar (El Capitan, SS Amnesty-just another slave ship), shafting blacks on many fronts. He ignores his constituents that are black disabled Vietnam veterans, that are subjected to seing their federal job and contracting preferences being stolen by Shamnesty's illegals.
MEXICAN MAFIA: Black farmers are extinct because banks won't give them federal loans. When NAM broke-out, Salazar broke for the "priesthood". I was forced to serve in 3 deployments to Vietnam. I recently applied for a federal disabled veterans business loan ($150K). Shamnesty, Denver SBA CEO Deherrera, and Colorado Enterprise Fund-Alan Ramirez, disapproved my loan just because I'm black. I think Shmanesty, De Herrera, and Ramirez should all be jailed (SuperMax) for federal funds fraud, waste, abuse, and RICO violations. Too bad Denver Deputy USAG Troy Eid, lacks "NADS".
Posted by 40acresandmymuleandNAMvetbennies on November 7, 2007 07:46 AMLet markets do the job. Competitive markets, in food, commodities and everything else, deliver the mostest, bestest and cheapest of whatever for the consumer. If you screw with the good old free-market supply and deman formula (with price supports that artificially stimulate supplies), then you screw with the consumer. Eventually, the law of unintended consequence grabs control of the whole process, and you get just the opposite of what you intended.
Based on the Berkeley/Cornell study, it requires 8,500 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. And that gallon of ethanol has 25% less energy (supplying less mileage) than a comparable gallon of crude oil based fuel. The stuff is so corrosive that it can't be piped, but you are being asked to store it in your gas tank (in your car, truck or boat). The stuff also works wonders on rubber hoses--kaaaaboooom! And very precious farm land is being diverted from the food chain (yielding higher food prices) into energy. None of this makes any sense, and it is downright dangerous. The consumer loses, he winds up paying more and gets less and the law of unintended consequences wins another one.
Posted by Hank on November 7, 2007 07:54 AMwelfare queens, welfare queens, welfare queens
Posted by Farmers on November 7, 2007 10:18 AMThis letter has a number of fallacies. Most of what you write is irrelevant to the Farm Bill discussion. Further, I think your facts are wrong. You write, 'Most of the Farm Bill’s spending is destined for school lunch programs for needy kids, and food stamps for the working poor.' Cite some figures please, cause I don't believe you.
Why is school lunch funding tied to a Farm Bill at all Byron? Food stamps and school lunches are thrown in to cloud the issue, to give some representatives something to point to that they honestly support.
You also state, 'Americans owe their good health as much to safe, abundant food as they do to medical advances, although we seldom think in those terms. And why should we; we take food for granted.'
Who is this we? I don't take food for granted, but that doesn't mean I want to subsidize any particular business either. Are you saying we wouldn't have any food at all without Farm Subsidies/ Socialized Agriculture?
If you're trying to convince anyone who isn't getting free money from the government, you are going to have to make a better case than this I am afraid.
Posted by Ed on November 7, 2007 10:23 AMI respect farmers as much as anyone. The part of the farm bill that gets so much attention is the subsidies that some farmers (or corporations) receive. Most people have a problem with millionair farmers receiving subsidies, myself included. The main point of the debate that I have seen over the last several days is the inability of the house and the senate to limit or eliminate these subsidies for farmers that make over 1 million (or $750.000) dollars per year. A more reasonable threshold that has been discussed is elimination of these subsudies for farmers that make over $250,000 per year. All of the other items you brought up in your editorial have little to do with the outrage. Does it really seem unreasonable to eliminate subsidies for farmers making more than $250,000 per year? I would think that would only be true if you were one of those farmers, and I would love to hear the defense of that position.
Posted by Dennis on November 7, 2007 12:53 PM40acres:
Go start a farm. Nobody is going to stop you just because you're black. Nobody cares.
Wow! Talk about stabbing the hand that feeds you.
Who gets the benefit of food that costs one-half less in the United States than in Europe, 1/5 the cost for Asians? You may still have food without a government low-cost food policy, but you'd pay through nose.
Bash ethanol if you want, but a least get the facts right: (1) ethanol subsidies $0.51; oil $1.32 per gallon based on a University of Chicago study. (2) Ethanol produces more energy than it consumes, USDA and other studies; (3) Water use not 8,500 gallons, rather 1,400 gallons much is non-consumptive; (4) food: ethanol is a by-product which leaves all the protein available for food use.
And lastly don't cite as Berkley and Cornell studies the propoganda of two well-paid oil company hacks who have been widely discredited by the scientific community.
Farm Bill: $44.1 Billion (52%) to food programs, such as school lunch, food stamps, and nutrition programs, Additionally there is $7.7 billion for natural resources, and $1 billion for food safety. The is goes on until you get near the bottom where you'll find farmers.
But heck it's the American way. Buy your healthy abundant food whenever you want and wherever you want, and stab the hand that feeds you.
Posted by on November 9, 2007 07:30 PMIt’s obvious that nobody before the “Wow!” responder bothered to do any homework.
Mr Weathers is correct. I’m looking at 2005 figures from the Congressional Budget Office that show 51.9% of the Farm Bill went to Nutrition Programs to feed and supplement the children of above respondents from Allen to Eli, and included food stamps, child nutrition programs, and school lunch programs. The rest of the spending went to categories like rural development, conservation, forest service, and – yes, includes commodity programs.
Those commodity programs provide a token amount of protection for farmers who invest or borrow from $500 to $1000 per acre or more to put a crop in the ground, in hopes to end up with something in the range of 10 to 50 dollars per acre.
That’s why the payment limits are also misunderstood. A family farm operation that plants 2000 acres may spend well over a million dollars to till, prep, feed, and plant a crop. If both lucky and good, the farm could end up with 1 to 10% after all the dust settles.
Small farmers cannot compete with huge food companies in the planting, growing and selling of crops because they own the land, own the production and the markets for crops and they don't have to borrow money to do it so what's the point Mark?
And, doesn't anybody think it's more than a little bit intensional deceptive to call it a farm bill, with all the down home, mom and pop conotations that has, when the majority of the money gets no where near small farmers.
Posted by Allen Campbell on November 11, 2007 11:25 AM