Subsidy

[Central Fl Cracker]

Does anybody remember the site that listed who got Government asst. and was listed by State and County?

 

[mwj]

google farm subsidy database at farm.ewg.org they are listed up to 2007.

 

[Central Fl Cracker]

Thanks that it is the site. It's unbeilable how much money farmers are getting from the Govt.

 

[Jogeephus]

Looks that way doesn't it. What this doesn't show is what the insurance farmers are getting cause this isn't included in these figures. I checked one farm just for the heck of it and the payment they received in 2007 didn't even pay the land taxes even though they received $70,000. Some might even argue that these payments aren't really being received by the farmers since they in turn have to give it to companies like Monsanto for the technology fee they charge farmers for the right to buy and use their seed. Just another way of looking at it.

 

[wade]

How exactly are some of these farms receiving subsidy? I understand putting your land in something like crp, where they pay you to not farm it but why would you receive subsidy for corn, oats, wheat, barley, livestock?

 

[Jogeephus]

How exactly are some of these farms receiving subsidy? I understand putting your land in something like crp, where they pay you to not farm it but why would you receive subsidy for corn, oats, wheat, barley, livestock?

Most of the more lucrative subsidies are gone. Tobacco and peanuts were two of them. These were set on what was called a quota system giving you the right to grow these crops and a guaranteed price for these crops. Anything over this quota was a risky proposition to say the least. Most of what I see on this site are payments for growing a certain crop like cotton. The intent of these payments is to insure that the farmer at least breaks even and doesn't lose everything. This year, futures traders ran cotton up to a dollar a pound BUT they wouldn't buy it from you for that. This was just paper trading - just like oil. I don't profess to understand this at all but what I do understand I don't like. Take corn. Corn went for $7 bushel but when the crops came in how much were the farmers actually paid? Nowhere near that amount but the high price of corn sure did affect you and me for quite some time. Its a screwy system but the farmer doesn't set the price of their product they just have to sell it for what the market will pay and the government only will pay them a little to insure they can at least break even. In this respect, I don't see a problem with these payments.

To say its a perfect system would be wrong. To say its not abused by some would be wrong too. But what is the alternative? Indirectly we as beef producers benefit from these subsidies as well due to cheap grain prices. Just look at historical data regarding beef prices and the price of corn. Its an inverse relationship and doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this trickles around.

But if you want to really get upset over something, look into the crop insurance. This is where the scams are. Its ridiculous and some people should be in prison over their abuses of this system. And yes, you and I pay for this and we pay dearly. This is something that I admired about Obama. He understood this and said he didn't have a problem with the system just the enforcement of the rules of the system. I salute him for that. So what do we do? Kill the mule cause its got fleas and let big industry control the farming in this country? Or should we just get rid of the fleas? The only entity that is capable of getting rid of the fleas is the government and for the last 20 years it did not seem to care.

 

[TexasBred]

Looks that way doesn't it. What this doesn't show is what the insurance farmers are getting cause this isn't included in these figures. I checked one farm just for the heck of it and the payment they received in 2007 didn't even pay the land taxes even though they received $70,000. Some might even argue that these payments aren't really being received by the farmers since they in turn have to give it to companies like Monsanto for the technology fee they charge farmers for the right to buy and use their seed. Just another way of looking at it.

Jogee...I just checked a few farmers I know....they got from 800,000 + down to a little less than 500,000. I gotta find out who their CPA and attorney is.

 

[Jogeephus]

Looks that way doesn't it. What this doesn't show is what the insurance farmers are getting cause this isn't included in these figures. I checked one farm just for the heck of it and the payment they received in 2007 didn't even pay the land taxes even though they received $70,000. Some might even argue that these payments aren't really being received by the farmers since they in turn have to give it to companies like Monsanto for the technology fee they charge farmers for the right to buy and use their seed. Just another way of looking at it.

Jogee...I just checked a few farmers I know....they got from 800,000 + down to a little less than 500,000. I gotta find out who their CPA and attorney is.

Is that not a cumulative total you are looking at. One I checked got $800,000 but this was over several years. Last year's payment was $70,000. I know for a fact this fella pays over $75,000 in land taxes, employees over 20 people, pays over six figures in income tax each year. So is $70,000 that much money to get back when you are paying well over that into the system? To me, it seems much fairer than an unearned tax credit.

 

[TexasBred]

Jogee...these were for '03,'04 and '05....."cash payments". Big farmers but also what I sometimes refer to as "insurance farmers" as well.

 

[Jogeephus]

Jogee...these were for '03,'04 and '05....."cash payments". Big farmers but also what I sometimes refer to as "insurance farmers" as well.

Those are huge yearly payments. I can't stand the insurance farmers who just work the system. They are a disgrace. I could fill out one form and pay just a little money and get back 50 times my input. At least for a couple of years. Then I could give this to my wife and let her be the producer and she could repeat the process. This is wrong. I won't do it. I know some who do and I'm sure you do to. So the question I have is that if WE know who is doing this shouldn't the gov't know this too. If so, why don't they do something about it? Its stealing plain and simple. Personally, I don't have a problem with the farm programs as long as they are not abused.

 

[TexasBred]

Jogee...these were for '03,'04 and '05....."cash payments". Big farmers but also what I sometimes refer to as "insurance farmers" as well.

Those are huge yearly payments. I can't stand the insurance farmers who just work the system. They are a disgrace. I could fill out one form and pay just a little money and get back 50 times my input. At least for a couple of years. Then I could give this to my wife and let her be the producer and she could repeat the process. This is wrong. I won't do it. I know some who do and I'm sure you do to. So the question I have is that if WE know who is doing this shouldn't the gov't know this too. If so, why don't they do something about it? Its stealing plain and simple. Personally, I don't have a problem with the farm programs as long as they are not abused.

Jogee...."wifes" were included in most of the claims I checked...one, two, three brothers or "partners" and also the wifes. The guy that got the 800,000 also got another 400,000 for just him and his wife just by using a different farm name.

 

[djinwa]

Jogee...these were for '03,'04 and '05....."cash payments". Big farmers but also what I sometimes refer to as "insurance farmers" as well.

Those are huge yearly payments. I can't stand the insurance farmers who just work the system. They are a disgrace. I could fill out one form and pay just a little money and get back 50 times my input. At least for a couple of years. Then I could give this to my wife and let her be the producer and she could repeat the process. This is wrong. I won't do it. I know some who do and I'm sure you do to. So the question I have is that if WE know who is doing this shouldn't the gov't know this too. If so, why don't they do something about it? Its stealing plain and simple. Personally, I don't have a problem with the farm programs as long as they are not abused.

I thought fraud, waste and abuse was the definition of gov't programs. I'd sure like someone to show me a gov't program that works well. Why doesn't the gov't care? Because it isn't their money.

I always have to ask what would happen if we actually followed the Constitution and gov't help for this kind of stuff was not available. Would we die? I have read when New Zealand had to get rid of their farm subsidies, they ended up better off, because they created a better market.

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/ ... 4&month=04

Let me give you an example: By 1984, New Zealand sheep farming was receiving about 44 percent of its income from government subsidies. Its major product was lamb, and lamb in the international marketplace was selling for about $12.50 (with the government providing another $12.50)per carcass. Well, we did away with all sheep farming subsidies within one year. And of course the sheep farmers were unhappy. But once they accepted the fact that the subsidies weren’t coming back, they put together a team of people charged with figuring out how they could get $30 per lamb carcass. The team reported back that this would be difficult, but not impossible. It required producing an entirely different product, processing it in a different way and selling it in different markets. And within two years, by 1989, they had succeeded in converting their $12.50 product into something worth $30. By 1991, it was worth $42; by 1994 it was worth $74; and by 1999 it was worth $115. In other words, the New Zealand sheep industry went out into the marketplace and found people who would pay higher prices for its product. You can now go into the best restaurants in the U.S. and buy New Zealand lamb, and you’ll be paying somewhere between $35 and $60 per pound.

Needless to say, as we took government support away from industry, it was widely predicted that there would be a massive exodus of people. But that didn’t happen. To give you one example, we lost only about three-quarters of one percent of the farming enterprises—and these were people who shouldn’t have been farming in the first place. In addition, some predicted a major move towards corporate as opposed to family farming. But we’ve seen exactly the reverse. Corporate farming moved out and family farming expanded, probably because families are prepared to work for less than corporations. In the end, it was the best thing that possibly could have happened. And it demonstrated that if you give people no choice but to be creative and innovative, they will find solutions.

 

[Jogeephus]

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the government needing to stick to the constitution and stay out of our affairs. However, I don't know how well you remember the grain embargo imposed by Jimmy Carter. In his attempt to punish the soviet union for (this is ironic) their invasion of Afghanistan, he halted grain sales and tried to use food as a weapon. So as long as big brother is willing to play politics with our products how can one hope to make a living? BTW - you couldn't give the grain away and you couldn't sell it. You had to put it in storage and borrow against it and pay the government rent on storage and interest on the loan. Now that doesn't sound fair to me.

 

[Weaver]

Around here most of the farm ground is rented by the farmers. The land owners have to sign a form to have the subsidies transferred from be sent to them to being sent to the farmer. It is then a common practice for the landowner to have a higher rent than they would have if no subsidies were given. So the farmer usually uses the subsidies recieved from leased ground just to pay the higher rent bill from the landowner.