Ok, its fun for me too. And given that its the eastern congressman that have been causing trouble with the farm program, I'm enjoying the opportunity to educate people about farm issues.
One last post... On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Ron Peterson wrote: > Way OT, but a fun thread nonetheless (to me, anyway) > > I grew up on a 3000 acre hard grain farm in the midwest. We have a > whole bunch of houses. Not because we're rich from farm subsidies, but > because farms (and the equipment used) are getting bigger and bigger. > The only farmhouse standing is the family farmhouse. The rest of the > farmhouses, along with their associated outbuildings, are long abandoned > and collapsing. We're close to a largish city, and can rent them out. Thats a rarity, where its still not that uncommon for teenagers to drive 100 miles to go to a movie. > Speaking of subsidies, most people I talk to around here don't like > them. Most farmers I know would rather not need them. There are a > couple of problems with saying "Well, that's just the way the free > market works. Maybe some people need to go out of business." Without > subsidies (or something) there's little incentive for farmers to leave > farmland fallow. Also, conditions that are out of your control (muddy > springs for fours year running, say) can put even the most astute hard > working farmer out of business. Farmers who can't make money when > conditions are good typically *do* go out of business. Set-A-Side (fallow) programs are only part of the subsidies. They are basically just good land stewardship in a market economy, and aren't the result of anyone exploiting farmers. Without them, the market would motivate farmers to overfarm the land. The result of overfarming is desert. There are other price supports in place, which is what I mean. Subsidies are just a way of returning to farmers what was stolen from them by the food processing companies, who paid the farmer less than the cost of production. This money doesn't really go to the farmer. It goes to the Food processor, who stole it in the first place. If these subsidies were just removed, a whole bunch of farmers would probably go broke in the chaos, but eventually the food processors would have to pay more. If you don't like subsidies, make the Food processors pay more to the farmer. Just don't forget to pay for last years theft. If you think your food will cost more, it might. But you already pay for it in taxes anyway. Where do you think the subsidies come from? Think of it as removing the fat person's subsidy. Fat people pay the same taxes, but eat more food. Think of it as an obesity reduction production ;-) > Unionize farms? Sure, if farmers could collectively decide to reduce > production they could drive prices higher and make more money. But who > could enforce such an edict over such a huge sparsely populated region? > The only way to prevent the scabs from taking advantage would be to pit > neighbor against neighbor. Well, when ya ain't got many neighbors, you > often need their help, and they're your friends (who else?), that's not > such a good idea. Won't happen. Yup. This is what caused the earlier efforts to fail. Its not just "scabs". If you drive up the price of grain, the people raising livestock have higher costs. They can't drive up the price of livestock at the same rate. If you give livestock producers a break, then some people will be concerned that livestock producers that also raise grains are getting an unfair deal over the ones that don't. There are lots of internal divisions between farmers to exploit, if it were your goal to disrupt this sort of thing. Sheep ranchers and cattle ranchers fight each other, both fight with the people raising grains. Range grazers (ranchers) fight people who want to put up fences. People put up fences to keep range cattle and sheep out of their fields. Some farmers are raising grains and livestock. Its extremely difficult to put anything together politically. > Many family farmers complain about farm corporatization. The middleman Yup. My folks are among them. But many of the corporate farms are just the relatives banded together. Not all. But I'd bet most. I know of some cattle and turkey farms owned by supermarkets. But my family always farmed together with the relatives, but (still -- he says with exasperation) hasn't incorporated. Well, fortunately estate taxes have been reduced. It might be possible for the kids to own the farm(s) someday. Corporations allow the kids to get ownership a little at a time over a long period, and thus avoid a large part of the estate tax. > making the profits from processing, packaging, and distribution may own > land and hire wage laborers to do the work. You might be surprised to > know how far north you can find migrant workers from Mexico. It also > works the other way. Some farmers, sugar beet farmers, say, form > collectives, purchase processing plants, and distribute processed goods > rather than beets out of the ground. Some people don't own land, just > equipment. One guy I know starts combining down south in the spring, > and works his way north as the season progresses. I know one custom combiner that used to bring a helicoptor on a semi, so he could fly in parts. He put a lot of combines in the field, though. Millions in equipment. > Umm, so what's my point? I dunno, let me think a second... ;) > > Farm industrialization improved efficiencies. This did not make things > easier for farmers. There are fewer farmers. Although I'd rather sit > in an air conditioned cab rather than harvest wheat with a sickle. If it weren't for industrialization, we'd be starving. I notice that you aren't farming, nor am I, nor is most of my high school class. We aren't farming because we can make a lot more money on the coast. We didn't leave because we weren't needed. My dad was pretty upset for a while that I didn't want to farm. I think we'd have left anyway, and ate less. > Could the same thing happen in computing? Probably there are pressures > in that direction, but there's a diversity of computing applications for > which there's no farm analogy. It's more analagous to the foot > processing industry - make money figuring out a million things to do > with the raw materials. So we exploit the poor users? Will there have to be "computer user subsidies" after the IT professional charged so much that the users can't earn a living without them? Do you think we can have a 1000 percent markup? Maybe we exploit the ISP's, and sell to the end users. Then there will be ISP subsidies. Maybe there should be now ;-) > There are any manner of ways for groups of people to collectively > accomplish things. Unions are one. There are others. Judging by the > shine on the tractors and the quality of the driveways, my seat of the > pants conclusion would be that the farmer who belongs to a > co-op/collective which owns a piece of the production stovepipe does > better than the other types of farmers I know. Yup. > The main reason I'm writing all of this is because I have to prep a room > for painting and I'm doing everything in my power to proscrastinate. I remember an REA (rural electric association) commercial where the kid was watching TV, and his mother keeps telling him to go do his chores. Finally, the kid goes out, and hits a button on an automatic silage system to feed the cattle. The end of the commercial goes "no matter how much you automate, its still going to be difficult to get a kid to do his chores". :-) I presume you have your black and decker power painter handy. --- Send mail for the `bblisa' mailing list to `[EMAIL PROTECTED]'. Mail administrative requests to `[EMAIL PROTECTED]'.
