Farm Subsidies

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4968]

We hear a lot about farm subsidies and how the Pubs love their forms of socialism while they denounce other forms and use that word as a scary word to influence votes. And that's a totally fair criticism. However, I see lots of folks using it as an example of how the blue states lot more in than the redder states. If you're strictly speaking about dollars, then yes. But are you really standing on the moral high ground if the government has to pay the people who are growing your food because you aren't willing to pay them a living wage? Is the subsidy really for the farmer, or the person buying the food? It seems to me that the winners here are the fatties who don't make much money (so, none of us). I get that large corporate farms pretty well screw up my argument, but that eventually happens any time you try to do something to help small businesses. 

Can we just act like we all play an important part in the functioning of our society, even if those other folks vote bad and probably smell bad too? 

[Guest Lobo]

Farmer post during the first minute of daylight saving time.  Well Played

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4968]

I think you mispronounced "should be year round time." Actually, that sounds pretty terrible, like I am a UT law school drop out or something.

[TwiceHorn 31280]

Some factoids about US ag policy.

The first comprehensive ag policy, FDRs AAA, actually reduced agricultural output and destroyed food crops to support prices.

At that time, 25% of farms were family-occupied.

It's now down to about 2%.

Fewer than 0.1% of the American population is employed by farms.

It's safe to say that heavy governmental intervention in agriculture originally was to protect and assist "family farmers."  It's also pretty safe to say that there aren't many family farmers to help out anymore.

 

 

[Celery Man 20886]

I don’t know nearly enough about this, but if the issue is the cost of food it seems like flooding the market with corn has more negative impacts than other ways that could address that problem.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4968]

Those are good points. Now let's tear them down. Not because they are bad points, but because statistics don't really do a very good job of telling the whole story.

How many of thos family farms became LLC's for business purposes but still function as family farms? I'm sure it is a number that is shrinking by the minute.

And when we look at the .1% of Americans who are employed by farms, are we looking at the counted population, or the actual population? There are probably lots of folks slipping between the cracks, depending on the crops and the level of automization involved.

I have no reason to doubt your numbers, and you are generally a pretty rational poster, so let's go with less than 1%. 

It's a pretty sad state of affairs that our policies have led us to this point. I don't want my tax dollars going to some billionaire who happens to own interest in a farm, but if they go to a family farmer who is providing us food without getting rich, then I think my point about farm subsidies really benefitting the fatties the most still stands.

[washparkhorn 9935]

Farmers should stand up for the public assistance provided to their economic sector.

Other sectors need the same public investment.

Nothing to be ashamed of. This is a mixed market economy after all. 

[Burt 4062]

Has anyone ever considered tariffs to help out the farmers?

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

6 hours ago, Celery Man said:

I don’t know nearly enough about this, but if the issue is the cost of food it seems like flooding the market with corn has more negative impacts than other ways that could address that problem.

I understand your point w/respect to corn and its myriad uses in industry and the cost to irrigate, etc but you will have to pry the golden ear of steamed sweet corn, dripping with butter and salt from my cold dead hands....

[Biff Tannen 45495]

Food Inc. does a good job explaining why big ag sucks.  

[hookemATL 11611]

4 hours ago, Burt said:

Has anyone ever considered tariffs to help out the farmers?

China could pay the tariffs!  We will do the tariffs on them!  Me a smart boy!

[Serak The Preparer 3424]

9 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

I have no reason to doubt your numbers, and you are generally a pretty rational poster, so let's go with less than 1%. 

It's a pretty sad state of affairs that our policies have led us to this point. I don't want my tax dollars going to some billionaire who happens to own interest in a farm, but if they go to a family farmer who is providing us food without getting rich, then I think my point about farm subsidies really benefitting the fatties the most still stands.

Interesting that this "less than 1% of the money goes to where it really needs to go" is ok and not socialism when it aligns with a cause you agree with. Now let's do this with literally every other form of spending that Republicans are against.

[TwiceHorn 31280]

9 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Those are good points. Now let's tear them down. Not because they are bad points, but because statistics don't really do a very good job of telling the whole story.

How many of thos family farms became LLC's for business purposes but still function as family farms? I'm sure it is a number that is shrinking by the minute.

And when we look at the .1% of Americans who are employed by farms, are we looking at the counted population, or the actual population? There are probably lots of folks slipping between the cracks, depending on the crops and the level of automization involved.

I have no reason to doubt your numbers, and you are generally a pretty rational poster, so let's go with less than 1%. 

It's a pretty sad state of affairs that our policies have led us to this point. I don't want my tax dollars going to some billionaire who happens to own interest in a farm, but if they go to a family farmer who is providing us food without getting rich, then I think my point about farm subsidies really benefitting the fatties the most still stands.

The stat I quoted referred to family-occupied farms, as opposed to owned, I believe in an effort to avoid false distinctions between those titled to individuals or groups and legal entities, yet are still "family" operations.  And it still probably captures some pretty "corporate" operations where the family still maintains a homestead on-premises.

And, I assume the 25>>0.1% numbers, however frail the calculation, were calculated in the same or a very similar way.

Regardless of the accuracy of the statistics, I think it is indisputable that farming and agriculture is a much, much more "corporate" endeavor than it was when market manipulation entered our ag policy.

Finally, insuring adequate food supply is an oft-cited justification for our ag policy.  I found it ironic that the first ag policy, and I think that continued for several decades, actually reduced the food supply in the name of stabilizing and supporting prices.

Edited March 14, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[David Dennison 18658]

10 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

I don't want my tax dollars going to some billionaire who happens to own interest in a farm, but if they go to a family farmer who is providing us food without getting rich, then I think my point about farm subsidies really benefitting the fatties the most still stands.

I'd rather Texas reform the ag exemption on property taxes so rich people don't get tax breaks for owning a ranch.

But that's just me.

[Royalfan5 2348]

10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Some factoids about US ag policy.

The first comprehensive ag policy, FDRs AAA, actually reduced agricultural output and destroyed food crops to support prices.

At that time, 25% of farms were family-occupied.

It's now down to about 2%.

Fewer than 0.1% of the American population is employed by farms.

It's safe to say that heavy governmental intervention in agriculture originally was to protect and assist "family farmers."  It's also pretty safe to say that there aren't many family farmers to help out anymore.

 

 

One of the dumbest things in political discourse is the fixation on family farms like they are only component of Agriculture in the US. (I saw this as someone who works with family farms for a living) Pretty much all your major field crops are still produced by family owned operations. Pretty much all of your cow herd is in the hands of family operations. The areas of livestock that have shifted into more corporate control like pork, poultry, and dairy have done so mostly for labor reasons, as having a small scale livestock operation is a shitty way to make a living because you can’t warrant outside labor, and it wears your body the fuck out. My Grandfather didn’t spend a single night away from home until he sold the dairy cows when he was in the late 50’s and his and my grandmas joints were shot from years milking in a flat parlor. Every hog man in my family excepting my dad who died young from cancer, have at least one joint fused or replaced. Same for all the neighbors. When you have to scale to warrant outside labor you can rotate it provides for a lot better quality of life for everyone. For your grain crops, it’s not near as exhausting on day to day basis, but it’s essential a long term real estate commodity play that takes a long time to payoff with significant risk in the meantime, which is not for everyone. Most of the family farms that are gone didn’t go broke, they decided that they didn’t want to run on that treadmill anymore, and their kids didn’t either, and we need to stop pretending otherwise. The misty vision of the family farm isn’t going to comeback, unless you explicitly pay people to live shittier lives so you can have them as museum pieces. The United States will keep trucking along as an agricultural power because of our natural resources and technology it just won’t look like you think it should.

[Sawbonz 27434]

More corporate welfare 

 

also how do you make a million dollars cattle ranching in Texas?

start with 2 million

Edited March 14, 2021 by Sawbonz

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

11 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

One of the dumbest things in political discourse is the fixation on family farms like they are only component of Agriculture in the US. (I saw this as someone who works with family farms for a living) Pretty much all your major field crops are still produced by family owned operations. Pretty much all of your cow herd is in the hands of family operations. The areas of livestock that have shifted into more corporate control like pork, poultry, and dairy have done so mostly for labor reasons, as having a small scale livestock operation is a shitty way to make a living because you can’t warrant outside labor, and it wears your body the fuck out. My Grandfather didn’t spend a single night away from home until he sold the dairy cows when he was in the late 50’s and his and my grandmas joints were shot from years milking in a flat parlor. Every hog man in my family excepting my dad who died young from cancer, have at least one joint fused or replaced. Same for all the neighbors. When you have to scale to warrant outside labor you can rotate it provides for a lot better quality of life for everyone. For your grain crops, it’s not near as exhausting on day to day basis, but it’s essential a long term real estate commodity play that takes a long time to payoff with significant risk in the meantime, which is not for everyone. Most of the family farms that are gone didn’t go broke, they decided that they didn’t want to run on that treadmill anymore, and their kids didn’t either, and we need to stop pretending otherwise. The misty vision of the family farm isn’t going to comeback, unless you explicitly pay people to live shittier lives so you can have them as museum pieces. The United States will keep trucking along as an agricultural power because of our natural resources and technology it just won’t look like you think it should.

Dairy is hard hard work. My spouse's uncle held out for a long time, and his son took over but yeah, it was not an easy go of it. My husband's late grandmother, a wonderful woman, was born in a sod house. I wish our children could've met her, she had some great stories.

[Kennythetiger 9334]

13 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Some factoids about US ag policy.

The first comprehensive ag policy, FDRs AAA, actually reduced agricultural output and destroyed food crops to support prices.

At that time, 25% of farms were family-occupied.

It's now down to about 2%.

Fewer than 0.1% of the American population is employed by farms.

It's safe to say that heavy governmental intervention in agriculture originally was to protect and assist "family farmers."  It's also pretty safe to say that there aren't many family farmers to help out anymore.

 

 

Huh. I would have thought your 25% number to be higher than that at the time. 

[Kennythetiger 9334]

3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Finally, insuring adequate food supply is an oft-cited justification for our ag policy.  I found it ironic that the first ag policy, and I think that continued for several decades, actually reduced the food supply in the name of stabilizing and supporting prices.

Conservation Reserve Program still does this. Very lucrative and more profitable than farming in many instances. 

[TwiceHorn 31280]

3 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

Huh. I would have thought your 25% number to be higher than that at the time. 

Same, that surprised me.  But giant corporate meat packers were a thing by the late 19th, so maybe that had crept outward to other ag.

[Kennythetiger 9334]

1 hour ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Dairy is hard hard work. My spouse's uncle held out for a long time, and his son took over but yeah, it was not an easy go of it. My husband's late grandmother, a wonderful woman, was born in a sod house. I wish our children could've met her, she had some great stories.

My father is in his 70s and still describes the best day of his life as the day my grandfather sold their dairy cows. 
I am in my 40s and describe the best day of my life as the day my father sold our herd of angora goats. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

1 minute ago, Kennythetiger said:

My father is in his 70s and still describes the best day of his life as the day my grandfather sold their dairy cows. 
I am in my 40s and describe the best day of my life as the day my father sold our herd of angora goats. 

I love goats.....when they belong to other people. I think that is the issue right there for our increasingly urban society. The reality of production especially with animals is that it is labor. Certain job categories people will justify paying shit wages while rationalizing, "it's a calling," (teachers/social workers, etc). Some aspects of farming are quite rewarding as with the other jobs I mentioned but it comes with a cost for certain.

 

[swraith 336]

I'm good with developing agriculture policies that target support for "family farms".  Let's work on defining that.  

Anybody have statistics on the % of government dollars that go to large agriculture corporations? Can those dollars be re-directed to "family farms"?  

The above sounds very much like picking winners and losers.  So maybe we just stop the dollars to agriculture corporations?

 

But really none of this is going to change.  There is no ground swell of support for major shifts in current agriculture policy....within the Senate.

[Buzzrock 14871]

I know less about this than celery, despite having grown up on a large production farm, but I’ve always had a feeling that corn subsidies are a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic.

[Celery Man 20886]

21 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Same, that surprised me.  But giant corporate meat packers were a thing by the late 19th, so maybe that had crept outward to other ag.

possibly sharecropping contributes to that number

[Neonmoon 38127]

15 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

I know less about this than celery, despite having grown up on a large production farm, but I’ve always had a feeling that corn subsidies are a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic.

[TwiceHorn 31280]

29 minutes ago, swraith said:

I'm good with developing agriculture policies that target support for "family farms".  Let's work on defining that.  

Anybody have statistics on the % of government dollars that go to large agriculture corporations? Can those dollars be re-directed to "family farms"?  

The above sounds very much like picking winners and losers.  So maybe we just stop the dollars to agriculture corporations?

 

But really none of this is going to change.  There is no ground swell of support for major shifts in current agriculture policy....within the Senate.

Why family farms?  Just some notion of wholesome rural ag-ness?

Insuring a food supply seems necessary.  Insuring some excess for global trade seems nice.

Don't know that big ag needs any subsidies to accomplish those goals.  Do family farms?  Is there a particular reason we want family farms?

Legit question.

We talk and hear a lot about the rural/urban divide, politically.  I find myself thinking the rurals at least deserve some respect and consideration, despite who they vote for.  But there are a lot of social and fiscal costs associated with the rurals.    I can't explain why I feel like they deserve respect and consideration.

Edited March 15, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Hagbard Celine 10763]

Spoiler

It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System

Only a tiny fraction of corn grown in the U.S. directly feeds the nation’s people, and much of that is from high-fructose corn syrup

This essay was posted initially on Ensia.com and is reprinted here with permission (Scientific American 20130305)

Nothing dominates the American landscape like corn.

Sprawling across the Midwest and Great Plains, the American Corn Belt is a massive thing. You can drive from central Pennsylvania all the way to western Nebraska, a trip of nearly 1,500 miles, and witness it in all its glory.  No other American crop can match the sheer size of corn.

So why do we, as a nation, grow so much corn?

The main reason is that corn is such a productive and versatile crop, responding to investments in research, breeding and promotion. It has incredibly high yields compared with most other U.S. crops, and it grows nearly anywhere in the country, especially thriving in the Midwest and Great Plains. Plus, it can be turned into a staggering array of products. Corn can be used for food as corn flour, cornmeal, hominy, grits or sweet corn. It can be used as animal feed to help fatten our hogs, chickens and cattle. And it can be turned into ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup or even bio-based plastics.

No wonder we grow so much of the stuff.

But it is important to distinguish corn the crop from corn the system. As a crop, corn is highly productive, flexible and successful. It has been a pillar of American agriculture for decades, and there is no doubt that it will be a crucial part of American agriculture in the future. However, many are beginning to question corn as a system: how it dominates American agriculture compared with other farming systems; how in America it is used primarily for ethanol, animal feed and high-fructose corn syrup; how it consumes natural resources; and how it receives preferential treatment from our government.

The current corn system is not a good thing for America for four major reasons.

The American corn system is inefficient at feeding people. Most people would agree that the primary goal of agriculture should be feeding people. While other goals—especially producing income, creating jobs and fostering rural development—are critically important too, the ultimate success of any agricultural system should be measured in part by how well it delivers food to a growing population. After all, feeding people is why agriculture exists in the first place.

Although U.S. corn is a highly productive crop, with typical yields between 140 and 160 bushels per acre, the resulting delivery of food by the corn system is far lower. Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported.  Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup.

Yes, the corn fed to animals does produce valuable food to people, mainly in the form of dairy and meat products, but only after suffering major losses of calories and protein along the way. For corn-fed animals, the efficiency of converting grain to meat and dairy calories ranges from roughly 3 percent to 40 percent, depending on the animal production system in question. What this all means is that little of the corn crop actually ends up feeding American people. It’s just math. The average Iowa cornfield has the potential to deliver more than 15 million calories per acre each year (enough to sustain 14 people per acre, with a 3,000 calorie-per-day diet, if we ate all of the corn ourselves), but with the current allocation of corn to ethanol and animal production, we end up with an estimated 3 million calories of food per acre per year, mainly as dairy and meat products, enough to sustain only three people per acre. That is lower than the average delivery of food calories from farms in Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam.

In short, the corn crop is highly productive, but the corn system is aligned to feed cars and animals instead of feeding people.

There are a number of ways to improve the delivery of food from the nation’s corn system. First and foremost, shifting corn away from biofuels would generate more food for the world, lower demand for grain, lessen commodity price pressures, and reduce the burden on consumers around the world. Furthermore, eating less corn-fed meat, or shifting corn toward more efficient dairy, poultry, pork and grass-fed beef systems, would allow us to get more food from each bushel of corn. And diversifying the Corn Belt into a wider mix of agricultural systems, including other crops and grass-fed animal operations, could produce substantially more food—and a more diverse and nutritious diet— than the current system.

The corn system uses a large amount of natural resources. Even though it does not deliver as much food as comparable systems around the globe, the American corn system continues to use a large proportion of our country’s natural resources.

In the U.S., corn uses more land than any other crop, spanning some 97 million acres— an area roughly the size of California. U.S. corn also consumes a large amount of our freshwater resources, including an estimated 5.6 cubic miles per year of irrigation water withdrawn from America’s rivers and aquifers. And fertilizer use for corn is massive: over 5.6 million tons of nitrogen is applied to corn each year through chemical fertilizers, along with nearly a million tons of nitrogen from manure. Much of this fertilizer, along with large amounts of soil, washes into the nation’s lakes, rivers and coastal oceans, polluting waters and damaging ecosystems along the way. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest, and most iconic, example of this. 

And the resources devoted to growing corn are increasing dramatically. Between 2006 and 2011, the amount of cropland devoted to growing corn in America increased by more than 13 million acres, mainly in response to rising corn prices and the increasing demand for ethanol. Most of these new corn acres came from farms, including those that were growing wheat (which lost 2.9 million acres), oats (1.7 million acres lost), sorghum (1 million acres lost), barley, alfalfa, sunflower and other crops. That leaves us with a less diverse American agricultural landscape, with even more land devoted to corn monocultures. And according to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, roughly 1.3 million acres of grassland and prairie were converted to corn and other uses in the western Corn Belt between 2006 and 2011, presenting a threat to the waterways, wetlands and species that reside there.

Looking at these land, water, fertilizer and soil costs together, you could argue that the corn system uses more natural resources than any other agricultural system in America, while providing only modest benefits in food. It’s a dubious trade-off—depleting natural resources to deliver relatively little food and nutrition to the world. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Innovative farmers are exploring other methods for growing corn, including better conventional, organic, biotech and conservation farming methods that can dramatically reduce chemical inputs, water use, soil losses and impacts on wildlife. We should encourage American farmers to continue these improvements.

The corn system is highly vulnerable to shocks. Although a large monoculture dominating much of the country with a single cropping system might be an efficient and profitable way to grow corn at an industrial scale, there is a price to being so big, with so little diversity. Given enough time, most massive monocultures fail, often spectacularly. And with today’s high demand and low grain stocks, corn prices are very volatile, driving spikes in the price of commodities around the world. Under these conditions, a single disaster, disease, pest or economic downturn could cause a major disturbance in the corn system.

The monolithic nature of corn production presents a systemic risk to America’s agriculture, with impacts ranging from food prices to feed prices and energy prices. It also presents a potential threat to our economy and to the taxpayers who end up footing the bill when things go sour. This isn’t rocket science: You wouldn’t invest in a mutual fund that was dominated by only one company, because it would be intolerably risky. But that’s what we’re doing with American agriculture. Simply put, too many of our agricultural eggs are in one basket.

A more resilient agricultural system would start by diversifying our crops, shifting some of the corn monoculture to a landscape rich with a variety of crops, pastures and prairies. It would more closely mimic natural ecosystems and include a mixture of perennial and different seasonal plants—not just summertime annuals with shallow roots that are especially sensitive to dry spells. Furthermore, it would include conservation tillage and organic farming practices that improve soil conditions by restoring soil structure, organic content and water holding capacity, making farming landscapes much more resilient to floods and droughts. The overall result would be a landscape better prepared to weather the next drought, flood, disease or pest.

The corn system operates at a big cost to taxpayers. Finally, the corn system receives more subsides from the U.S. government than any other crop, including direct payments, crop insurance payments and mandates to produce ethanol. In all, U.S. crop subsidies to corn totaled roughly $90 billion between 1995 and 2010—not including ethanol subsidies and mandates, which helped drive up the price of corn.

Today, one of the biggest corn subsidies come in the form of federally supported crop insurance. In fact, for the 2012 season U.S. crop insurance programs will likely pay out an estimated $20 billion or more—shattering all previous records. Amazingly, these record subsidies are being paid as corn just had one of the most lucrative years in history. Even with the 2012 drought, high prices meant that U.S. corn broke record sales figures. Do record subsidies make sense during a year of record sales?

Naturally, some farmers were hit harder by the drought than others, and crop insurance programs are intended to help them make up these losses. That’s a noble goal. But should taxpayers be paying higher prices for a crop that was never harvested?

It might be time to rethink our crop subsidy programs, to focus tax dollars where they will achieve the greatest public good. We should help farmers recover their losses during a natural disaster, making them whole again, but not gain from failed harvests at public expense. We should also consider helping all farmers who suffered losses, not just those growing only certain commodity crops.  And we should look to support farmers for important things that markets don’t address, such as reducing runoff and erosion, improving soil and biodiversity, and providing jobs for rural America. Farmers are the stewards of our nation’s most fertile lands and should be rewarded for their work to carefully manage these resources.

Bottom line: We need a new approach to corn

As a crop, corn is an amazing thing and a crucial part of the American agricultural toolbox. But the corn system, as we currently know it, is an agricultural juggernaut, consuming more land, more natural resources and more taxpayer dollars than any other farming system in modern U.S. history. As a large monoculture, it is a vulnerable house of cards, precariously perched on publicly funded subsidies. And the resulting benefits to our food system are sparse, with the majority of the harvested calories lost to ethanol or animal feedlot production. In short, our investment of natural and financial resources is not paying the best dividends to our national diet, our rural communities, our federal budget or our environment. It’s time to reimagine a system that will.

What would such a system look like?

This reimagined agricultural system would be a more diverse landscape, weaving corn together with many kinds of grains, oil crops, fruits, vegetables, grazing lands and prairies. Production practices would blend the best of conventional, conservation, biotech and organic farming. Subsidies would be aimed at rewarding farmers for producing more healthy, nutritious food while preserving rich soil, clean water and thriving landscapes for future generations. This system would feed more people, employ more farmers and be more sustainable and more resilient than anything we have today.

It is important to note that these criticisms of the larger corn system—a behemoth largely created by lobbyists, trade associations, big businesses and the government—are not aimed at farmers. Farmers are the hardest working people in America, and are pillars of their communities. It would be simply wrong to blame them for any of these issues. In this economic and political landscape, they would be crazy not to grow corn; farmers are simply delivering what markets and policies are demanding. What needs to change here is the system, not the farmers.

And no matter what happens, this won’t mean the end of corn. Far from it. Corn crops will always be a major player in American agriculture. But with the current corn system dominating our use of natural resources and public dollars, while delivering less food and nutrition than other agricultural systems, it’s time ask tough questions and demand better solutions.

Jonathan Foley, @GlobalEcoGuy, is the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. The views expressed here are his own, and do not reflect those of the University of Minnesota or any other organization.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)Jonathan Foley

Jonathan Foley, PhD, is the executive director of Project Drawdown and recently served as the executive director of the California Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, Science, Nature and many other publications.

corn economy - 2013 article - remains best overview i've seen

[Hagbard Celine 10763]

The solution is perennial agriculture but it kills chemcorp and the pivot industries and as stated above you'll never get that through the senate.

https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/kernza/

[Hagbard Celine 10763]

we had this thread not to long ago.

paging @Al_4_ISU

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

A handful of points:

-Many of the larger grain farms blur the lines between what's corporate and what's family.  Our operation is good sized, contains some non-family members with ownership, but also contains me, my brother, dad, and uncle.  We operate all the land that my grandpa farmed/still owns and all that land that my dad, uncle, and aunt own.  But we have big equipment and function like a small company and many locals wouldn't consider us a family farm.  The idea that there are "corporate farms" that are being run out of some office building in Chicago or New York is mostly a myth in the grain world.  I'm not aware of any operation around me that functions like this.  You do see this, or at least something like this, in the livestock industry.

-Small farms currently get more $ per acre from farm subsidies than large farms.  Because of payment limitation caps, large farms generally max out on their payments and the money they receive is a much smaller percentage of their revenue.  $ per acre is how financial performance is measured in grain production.  If anything, the current subsidy system is much more vital to their survival than it is to the bigger operations.

-Personally, I would prefer that farm subsidies go the way of the buffalo.  Because payment information is public, our landlords know how much we get.  When they look that up, they inevitably want more rent.  Seed, fertilizer, and equipment prices always rise after a big round of subsidies.  It's basically welfare that creates immediate inflation in our operating expenses and washes itself out in the long term.  Plus, it's a controversial issue that puts farmers in a negative light - especially when so many in this line of work can't see the naked hypocrisy in getting these payments, but then whining about poor people getting welfare checks (No CR).

Take what you want from this.  Just my $.02.

[Royalfan5 2348]

I'd also like to point out the main piece of subsisdation that keeps your corn acres up is that by and large the crop insurance program and how it's subsidized and set up is more lucrative for corn even in a supply environment that is crying out for more soybean acres. 

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

3 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

I'd also like to point out the main piece of subsisdation that keeps your corn acres up is that by and large the crop insurance program and how it's subsidized and set up is more lucrative for corn even in a supply environment that is crying out for more soybean acres. 

Part of the issue here is that corn is a crop which is much more easy for farmers to profitably manipulate across a variety of weather and soil conditions.  Soybean yields are much more weather sensitive, and even at the current market positions, you can make more money per acre growing corn.  If it's too wet, soybeans develop mold.  If it's too dry, they burn up.  Corn varieties can continue to thrive in wet years if you keep hitting them with fertilizer, and the drought resistance of modern varieties is pretty damn impressive.

You could eliminate direct subsidies and insurance, and in most years we make more money growing corn.  You grow soybeans to make a better margin off the next year's crop and hope they can break even or make you a little money.

To get people away from growing corn, you have to have a profitable replacement.  That doesn't really exist right now in the corn belt.  We aren't growing corn because of direct subsidies.  We grow corn because it's the most profitable crop to grow in this environment.  It would likely take direct subsidization of alternative crops or increased CRP rates to push people away from growing corn.

Even then, if direct subsidies and indirect subsidies like ethanol go away, you'll still see a lot of corn acres to keep up with livestock feeding demand.  Less than now, of course.

[Royalfan5 2348]

4 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Part of the issue here is that corn is a crop which is much more easy for farmers to profitably manipulate across a variety of weather and soil conditions.  Soybean yields are much more weather sensitive, and even at the current market positions, you can make more money per acre growing corn.  If it's too wet, soybeans develop mold.  If it's too dry, they burn up.  Corn varieties can continue to thrive in wet years if you keep hitting them with fertilizer, and the drought resistance of modern varieties is pretty damn impressive.

You could eliminate direct subsidies and insurance, and in most years we make more money growing corn.  You grow soybeans to make a better margin off the next year's crop and hope they can break even or make you a little money.

To get people away from growing corn, you have to have a profitable replacement.  That doesn't really exist right now in the corn belt.  We aren't growing corn because of direct subsidies.  We grow corn because it's the most profitable crop to grow in this environment.  It would likely take direct subsidization of alternative crops or increased CRP rates to push people away from growing corn.

Even then, if direct subsidies and indirect subsidies like ethanol go away, you'll still see a lot of corn acres to keep up with livestock feeding demand.  Less than now, of course.

I get that. That being said, the current corn set up gets corn acres in parts of the Western Corn Belt that should be heavier on beans or sorghum in NE, KS, SD, and CO that the one size fits all stuff in the farm program shifts to corn. 

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

3 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

I get that. That being said, the current corn set up gets corn acres in parts of the Western Corn Belt that should be heavier on beans or sorghum in NE, KS, SD, and CO that the one size fits all stuff in the farm program shifts to corn. 

That's definitely true.  Those fringe acres likely wouldn't shift without it.  I was surprised last summer when I went out to Yellowstone and saw corn planted all the way to the foothills of the Black Hills.  When I made that drive as a kid, you shifted to wheat as soon as you crossed the Missouri.

I'm just talking about what's going on where I'm at.  We're more well suited for corn production than anywhere else in this country save for parts of Illinois.

[washparkhorn 9935]

Ethanol plants and feeders benefit from welfare we provide to Corn Producers. 

It lowers their costs to produce their products (ethanol and livestock).

Socialism in action.  

That word frightens so many people. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by washparkhorn

[Royalfan5 2348]

24 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

That's definitely true.  Those fringe acres likely wouldn't shift without it.  I was surprised last summer when I went out to Yellowstone and saw corn planted all the way to the foothills of the Black Hills.  When I made that drive as a kid, you shifted to wheat as soon as you crossed the Missouri.

I'm just talking about what's going on where I'm at.  We're more well suited for corn production than anywhere else in this country save for parts of Illinois.

That's why it's always fun for me when my Iowa clients bitch about weather and what not, to tell them about what my Kansas guys have to deal with. 

[TwiceHorn 31280]

"Family" in this context should probably be readjusted to "small business."  Whether it's purely a family operation is pretty irrelevant, except for some frothy emotional appeal.  I think the question of interest is whether it is part of a massive corporate entity like ConAgra, Cargill, etc.

And that's not a matter purely of "big corporation bad," but there are a lot of valid reasons that big corps don't need help the way small businesses might (access to credit for one thing), and the big corps probably have an undue influence on policy due to their massive expenditures on lobbying.

Edited March 15, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

2 hours ago, Royalfan5 said:

I get that. That being said, the current corn set up gets corn acres in parts of the Western Corn Belt that should be heavier on beans or sorghum in NE, KS, SD, and CO that the one size fits all stuff in the farm program shifts to corn. 

When my spouse was an undergrad in Lincoln he had to come up with a marketing plan for an underutilized grain or something along those lines. He got outvoted (group project) in favor of an amaranth cookie but I always loved his idea: a cereal called Captain Milo. Nestle already made a product called 'Milo' that was derived from malted wheat so his idea got the downvote. IIRC, sorghum doesn't need as much irrigation as corn.

[Royalfan5 2348]

55 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

When my spouse was an undergrad in Lincoln he had to come up with a marketing plan for an underutilized grain or something along those lines. He got outvoted (group project) in favor of an amaranth cookie but I always loved his idea: a cereal called Captain Milo. Nestle already made a product called 'Milo' that was derived from malted wheat so his idea got the downvote. IIRC, sorghum doesn't need as much irrigation as corn.

Milo does well in dry conditions and China loves it. Usually trades at a discount of 30-50 cents to corn, currently is at 90-140 premium. The rub is that if it’s dry you’ll raise 90 bushel milo and 60 bushel corn, but if it’s good you’ll raise 100 bu milo and 160 bu corn. Also it’s really itchy and prone to create enough dust to blow up a grain elevator. 

[Hagbard Celine 10763]

for the gallery:

can you grow soy indoors in a vertical agriculture aquaponic setup like vegetables?

[Al_4_ISU 12409]

Milo does well in dry conditions and China loves it. Usually trades at a discount of 30-50 cents to corn, currently is at 90-140 premium. The rub is that if it’s dry you’ll raise 90 bushel milo and 60 bushel corn, but if it’s good you’ll raise 100 bu milo and 160 bu corn. Also it’s really itchy and prone to create enough dust to blow up a grain elevator. 

Just to point out the difference in corn potential, 160 bu/acre would be an abject failure for us and most farmers in my area.

[Royalfan5 2348]

23 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Just to point out the difference in corn potential, 160 bu/acre would be an abject failure for us and most farmers in my area.

Yeah but when your cash rent is 70 bucks an acre it’ll do just fine 

[BradInATX 9208]

Ethanol plants and feeders benefit from welfare we provide to Corn Producers. 
It lowers their costs to produce their products (ethanol and livestock).
Socialism in action.  
That word frightens so many people. 

I have no issue with subsidies for American farmers. But let's be very clear about what they are. They are socialist welfare. Both for the farmers and for the consumers.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

18 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

I have no issue with subsidies for American farmers. But let's be very clear about what they are. They are socialist welfare. Both for the farmers and for the consumers.

It's time to take back that word. A welfare check is what I asked for once when I called the local law enforcement to check on a situation that ultimately turned out to be a domestic abuse/stalking situation. Welfare has to do with the state of doing well with respect to well-being. Is that so wrong that we should look out for our fellow citizens and want them to do well and prosper? The idea of loving fellow Americans has been turned on its head to the point that many of us seemingly hate fellow Americans and see everything as a taking something out of a sandbox instead of building a sandbox together. Maybe I'm hung up on the idea of the solo American who wasn't really so alone when you read the historical accounts. Heck, some of the early plains settlers went insane when they didn't have neighbors....

[BradInATX 9208]

5 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

It's time to take back that word. A welfare check is what I asked for once when I called the local law enforcement to check on a situation that ultimately turned out to be a domestic abuse/stalking situation. Welfare has to do with the state of doing well with respect to well-being. Is that so wrong that we should look out for our fellow citizens and want them to do well and prosper? The idea of loving fellow Americans has been turned on its head to the point that many of us seemingly hate fellow Americans and see everything as a taking something out of a sandbox instead of building a sandbox together. Maybe I'm hung up on the idea of the solo American who wasn't really so alone when you read the historical accounts. Heck, some of the early plains settlers went insane when they didn't have neighbors....

 

I agree. I chose that word for a reason. We have countless posters on this board that no doubt get together with their buddies and piss and moan about welfare queens buying lobster with food stamps while receiving welfare of some form or fashion, completely oblivious to their own hypocrisy.

I can tell you the race of the recipient of a social program almost 100% of the time based on the person describing it and the word they use. 

A subsidy is almost always a white person. Welfare is almost always a person of color.

Edited March 16, 2021 by BradInATX

[pyrohornIII 4809]

2 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

for the gallery:

can you grow soy indoors in a vertical agriculture aquaponic setup like vegetables?

Would think the cost of production would exceed any profit to be made.   Plus harvest would be an issue.

There are some pretty intense subsidies on rice, sugar and honey as well.   I think that has to do with keeping some domestic production for protection in trade situations. 

 

I wish we could get away from the vertical integration and back to local production.   We could solve so many problems if we started farming our lands like we did before corporate farming.    And the corporate farmers like AI aren't getting rich either.  They have to take on more and more acreage to justify the larger machinery.  Cotton harvest now is pretty much all custom work, since the harvesters are a quarter million apiece.  You can't afford own one for just 2000 acres of cotton.

I worked for a corporate farm in high school, kind of like AI's.  The farmer told me then, back in the 70s that our soil wasn't anything but structure, we used it to hold up plants, we added all the nutrients.  He was right about that.  

I'd really like to see a push, some incentive programs to go back more to small natural farms.  Those highlighted on Kiss the Soil are what I am alluding to.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

8 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

 

I agree. I chose that word for a reason. We have countless posters on this board that no doubt get together with their buddies and piss and moan about welfare queens buying lobster with food stamps while receiving welfare of some form or fashion, completely oblivious to their own hypocrisy.

I can tell you the race of the recipient of a social program almost 100% of the time based on the person describing it and the word they use. 

A subsidy is almost always a white person. Welfare is almost always a person of color.

Perhaps it also got started as subsidy was to a group of people (farmers/airlines/etc) and welfare went to an individual. Among individuals, it is easier for the whole 'I'll be the judge of your worthiness to be deserving' metric that is applied. Race plays a factor and always has, but the welfare that goes to the farm owner is/was viewed differently than the welfare that goes/went to the crop picker all the way back to the Joad family.

[BradInATX 9208]

16 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Perhaps it also got started as subsidy was to a group of people (farmers/airlines/etc) and welfare went to an individual. Among individuals, it is easier for the whole 'I'll be the judge of your worthiness to be deserving' metric that is applied. Race plays a factor and always has, but the welfare that goes to the farm owner is/was viewed differently than the welfare that goes/went to the crop picker all the way back to the Joad family.

You might be right about the origins. Probably so. If you asked, say, an average Trump voter to describe college grants for persons of color or tax breaks for minority owned businesses, do you think they'd describe them closer to their perception of "welfare" or that of "subsidies"? I know where my money would be.

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

3 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

You might be right about the origins. Probably so. If you asked, say, an average Trump voter to describe college grants for persons of color or tax breaks for minority owned businesses, do you think they'd describe them closer to their perception of "welfare" or that of "subsidies"? I know where my money would be.

Welfare, no doubt. It's also the perception not unlike (and pardon as this is not meant to offend) when the lily white subdivision suddenly discovers a minority family has bought a home. It's the 'they're taking over the neighborhood' effect. When one combines that along with the bias of considering someone who 'looks' like you as having similar values, etc and an outgroup (someone who doesn't 'look' like you) as being untrustworthy to use any funds wisely, it most likely creates a fear based resentment that reinforces the belief that certain outgroups are taking advantage of unfair benefits.

No one talks about the Koch brothers being able to log public forests for private gain, but we have covered the costs for that to the tune of a billion dollars a year.