Comments jarmadi has made

  • Invasion of the Agricons

    OK.....I get it.  If we destroy subsidies and price supports, and maximise risks for farmers we will admittedly be blowing up farming, but we will have hopes that our present farming will be supplanted by a new farming that will more meet the approval of some of us.  Changes might occur that would end global warming and most other environmental degradations and end childhood obesity and diabetes.  No more pesticides, no more chemical fertilizers, no more produce shipped in from California, Florida, or Texas.  Healthy, good tasting food for healthy, happy people.  Healthy farm towns and healthy happy farm families.  And everyone will learn to love us and will learn to love Israel and Islam will be transformed into a religion of tolerance and peace and individual liberty. Ooops, that last part belongs to another fantasy.

    Have I heard arguments like this before.....uh......yes, I think it was before the neocons invaded Iraq.   This article favors laying waste to farmers and farm families and farm towns and farm banks and schools and culture.  But who knows....."maybe what arises in it's place will be better."

    I think what really is in need of an infusion of risk is the teaching of economics.  With all of our national and global economic problems, why are there still so many lame economic spokesmen, pundits, and professors.  How come the neocons and the neoliberals still contend for the most inaccurate predictors of all time?  Why hasn't Supply Side Economics been permanently  lain to rest?  Has academic tenure in cozy university jobs led to a stagnation of economic thought and creativity?  Is there not grounds for hope that if we fire them all, that possibly much better economists might arise and supplant them.  And we would never again have to endure the economic theories of social darwinist hollywood hack script writers.  We can only hope......On Why gutting commodity subsidies should be the focus of Farm Bill reform efforts posted 2 years ago 4 Responses

  • Subsidy Snapshot

    Tom has questioned whether our current farm subsidies really have the powers that have been attributed to them......to have a large significance in the decisions of farmers, and a responsibility for overproduction, obesity, world hunger, etc. etc.

    Let's examine more closely the wheat subsidy.  Our area is typical wheat growing country, and the subsidy is $14.35 per acre.  This is taxable income, and a typical farmer in the 15% tax braket would owe back that 15% plus about 16% FICA taxes plus 6% state income tax......a total of 37%.  This leaves $9.04 for the farmer to add to his loan payment or something.  The $9 is a pitiful percentage of the farmers total investment on an acre of wheat, and the idea that he would obcess about how to retain this subsidy at all costs, or would shape his farming decisions around the existence of this subsidy, or to be in need of "weaning away" from this subsidy are all preposterous ideas.  

    The subsidies for corn and soybeans are greater than for wheat, but the land and equipment cost for these crops are proportionally higher, so I think the "subsidy snapshots" would look much the same.  In some of these comments, I have gotten the impression that some believe that farmers "get rich" from collecting these subsidies, and become addicted to them, etc.  Clearly that cannot be the case.On A response to my critics posted 2 years ago 11 Responses

  • Package Deal

    I still think that it will turn out to be a mistake to attempt to ban packer ownership of all varieties of livestock all at once as a package deal.  They should initially focus on packer/grain company ownership of feeder cattle.  Although feeder cattle are presently 80% coporate owned, these corporations have very little financial investment in feeding facilities.  As corporate feeder ownership is phased out, the prior individual players and ranchers that would maintain ownership of their own cattle would replace them.  The change would cost some corporate profits, but probably only chump change to them.

    Banning corporate ownership of hogs and poultry  is a whole other story.  With these animals, the corporate vertically integrated system goes from birth to dinner plate and involves extensive corporate investment.  I think that it makes sense to get your foot in the door with cattle, and then take your chances later with hogs, then poultry.On Don't let Big Meat slaughter the packer ban posted 2 years ago 9 Responses

  • Three Equations

    One:

    overproduction-->low prices-->direct payment subsidy-->unchanged production-->unchanged prices

    Two:

    overproduction-->low prices-->price support subsidies hinged on production limits-->lower production-->higher prices-->no subsidies

    Three:

    lowered production-->higher prices-->increased costs to agribusiness interests-->higher cost of living indices-->increased possibility of interest rate increases -->resistence from multiple fronts(governmental, agribusiness, and financial interests) and pressures to increase production and lower prices.On Why gutting subsidies shouldn't be the focus of Farm Bill reform efforts posted 2 years ago 17 Responses

  • List

    Returning to the list of the ill effects of farm subsidies, one of the 7 items refers to the "...fact that most subsidy money passes quickly from farmers to farm suppliers, processors, and other related sectors, again negating the intended effect of supporting farmers."

    I don't understand what is objectionable about a farmer using his money to pay his bills.  If a subsidy assists in that regard, how is this not supporting farmers?  Would financing a vacation be more in line with the "intended effect"?  Is it because it "passes quickly"?  Does he think that farmers are not adequately stalling in paying their creditors?  Very peculiar......
    On Why gutting subsidies shouldn't be the focus of Farm Bill reform efforts posted 2 years ago 17 Responses

  • Farm Production and Resentment

    In Jason's link, scrolling down to the list of the ill effects of farm subsidies, the writers seem to say that subsidies simultaneously cause high commodity prices and low commodity prices.  That's a good trick.

    Subsidies are also said to cause Farmer to Farmer resentment, that they will inevitably feel that their neighbor has maybe received a better subsidy.  In my experience, farmers can find many other things (wives, hunting dogs) to covet that set off more sparks than do the imagined size of one's neighbor's subsidies.On Why gutting subsidies shouldn't be the focus of Farm Bill reform efforts posted 2 years ago 17 Responses

  • Subsidy

    Good column, Tom....

    What is generally meant by the term "subsidy" is often confusing to me.  In recent years, I have used the term to refer to, and only to, the "direct payment" to farmers of program crops....a payment that is totally unhinged from whatever the market price for those crops might be.  The old style "deficiency payment" ,that only kicked in when the market price was below the target price, I guess is technically also a subsidy, but it is so different in nature from the "direct payment" that I just don't lump them both into the same term.  I've seen where CRP payments have also been considered subsidies, even though that payment stems from a quid pro quo contractual arrangement.

    I wish that this troublesome concept could be better defined, because my position is to do away with the direct payment, but to have the deficiency payment retained and to just sleep until needed, and the CRP program made even more available.  If asked whether I am for or against subsidies, I can't give a simple yes or no answer.On Why gutting subsidies shouldn't be the focus of Farm Bill reform efforts posted 2 years ago 17 Responses

  • Yep

    Agree that 1994 signaled a turnaway from any semblance of production management in the farm program.  I remember Dick Armey giddyly explaining how farmers will be unleashed to produce abundant crops, which will become  incredibly cheap and capture all the world markets, and countries who have price supports for commodities will go bankrupt paying their farmers deficiency payments.  I thought that this guy was absolutely the biggest idiot that I have ever seen on my television.  May the Freedom to Farm Act forever RIP.

    You are talking corn, and I'm talking wheat.....I can't speak to corn.  Not much corn at all grown around here, so we are somewhat insulated from corn issues, but changes in the corn markets ripple throughout the other grains.  

    My comments about conservation tillage practices did not refer to no-till.  Rather than the past reliance on mold board plows and disk harrows, most current wheat farmers leave the crop residue on top of the soil as long as possible.  Initial and secondary tillage is typically by chisel plow.  This controls weeds, but avoids "fluffing" the soil until shortly prior to, or during, planting. Herbacides are not used. In my experience, terraceing and grassy field drainage areas do indeed have an effect on the cutting and washing of rain  waters.  Not saying it's perfect, nor that erosion no longer exists, just that these procedures are certainly not a waste of time.

    If I sounded a little harsh in the last post, sorry.  There has been quite a bit written re the upcoming farm program on the sites I visit, most seeming to me to be way off the point.  The Washington Post ran a series that I thought was terrible.  The NYTimes has run stuff equally bad.  I've read your writings on other sites and respect your opinion, but I didn't think that this was one of your best.....On More evidence that industrial ag is destroying the planet posted 2 years ago 18 Responses

  • Misleading

    This article leads off:

    "From an ecological standpoint, the fundamental problem with U.S. farm policy dating back to the '70s is that it rewards farmers for maximizing yield at all cost.

    Encouraged to produce as much as possible, all the time, farmers have few incentives to conserve resources or protect water, air, or soil quality. The federal government's dizzying array of biofuel subsidies -- which have propped up crop prices and encouraged yet more production -- only exacerbates the situation."

    Well, the above includes a minimum of fact, along with some distortions, and some things that are just not right.  First of all, it overlooks how the Soviet invasion of Chechoslovakia impacted American farming from the late 70's until now.  In the early 70's the Nixon administration negotiated huge, really really huge contracts for grain sales to the USSR.  The US farmer was urged/pushed to increase production of grain to meet these contractual obligations, primarily by plowing under vast acreages of fragile, highly erodable grasslands for new grain fields.  Prices of grain were high, and although there were existent USDA commodity programs, the price of grain was considerably above the target prices where price supports would kick in, so the cost to the tax payer was zero.

    Then, during the Carter administration, in reaction to the Soviet invasion, Pres Carter punished the Soviets by (1) pulling the US out of the Moscow olympics and (2) blocking all grain sales to the USSR.  The impact on the USSR was marginal.  Instead it cost the US farmer billions, and the US taxpayer further billions in price supports. Grain prices went down by about 65%.  We had an excess of grains, and an excess of cultivated acres.  For the next 10 years, in order to collect any price supports, grain farmers had to severely limit production.  Look it up!  Your basic thesis is just wrong. The conservation reserve program was also initiated in order to subtract acres in cultivation and cover them once again in native grasses and forbs.

    Also, I might note that the farmer and the FSA have long partnered in terraceing land and sodding waterways and improving cultivation techniques in order to minimize erosion.  It is in the nations interest and the farmers interest to do so.  Your assertion that such efforts don't exist and that there is no incentive to pay attention to environmental concerns is just wrong.....insultingly so.  I worry that some of your readers might be seriously mislead by the inaccuracies of this article.

    FWIW.....I support a return to the price support/production management type of farm program as per prior to 1994.  The "unhinged subsidy" of the current program can certainly be jettisoned, as far as I'm concerned.On More evidence that industrial ag is destroying the planet posted 2 years ago 18 Responses

  • Thanks......

    .....but, although there seems to be a definite opportunity to block packers, and potentially also grain companies, from ownership of feeder cattle, I would question whether it is practical to include poultry and hogs.  I think it would likely doom the whole package.  The vertically integrated corporate livestock production system is pervasive in both hogs and poultry, and especially entrenched in poultry.  I question whether the clock can be turned back except for feeder cattle.  It would be great if it could happen......but I doubt that it can.  On Call your senator today posted 2 years ago 4 Responses

  • Livestock Title

    I have long supported legislation to ban packer ownership of cattle for more than two weeks prior to slaughter.  I have heard that such this Livestock Title does include such a ban.  But I am unsure whether the prohibition is only for cattle, or is also intended for hogs and poultry.......which would seem to be much more difficult to implement, and much more difficult to get passed. I'm trying to find more info that goes into more detail about this......On Call your senator today posted 2 years ago 4 Responses