Posted on 09/09/2018 8:16:22 AM PDT by bkopto
A 52-story skyscraper on Park Avenue in New York City is the world headquarters for JPMorganChase, the largest bank in the U.S. But according to data from the Department of Agriculture, it’s also the home of one of 850 “farmers” who live in Manhattan.
270 Park Avenue, New York City. All photos from Google Street View.
Between 1995 and 2016, those “farmers” received almost $16 million in federal farm subsidies. The map below plots their locations.
Many of these “farmers” are also bankers, lawyers or Wall Street bigwigs. Their “farms” are at decidely urban addresses like 1015 Madison Avenue, 135 Central Park West and 40 Broad Street.
1015 Madison Avenue
135 Central Park West
40 Broad Street
Why do city slickers in the nation’s largest city get farm subsidies? Under USDA rules, farm subsidy recipients do not have to actually live on or contribute personal labor to the farm to receive subsidies.
In theory, farm subsidy recipients must be “actively engaged” in farming. But the Government Accountability Office recently reported that in 2015, almost one-fourth of farm subsidy recipients did not personally provide labor on the farm.
EWG’s analysis of USDA data found that overall, nearly 18,000 people who received subsidies in 2016 live in the nation’s 50 largest cities. In 2015 and 2016, they received $63 million in farm subsidies. And 245 of them received taxpayer-funded farm subsidies or disaster payments for 32 straight years.
Our analysis of Manhattan farmers comes as House and Senate farm bill negotiators decide whether to allow a farmer’s cousins, nieces and nephews to receive subsidies, as the House has proposed. By contrast, the Senate has proposed to limit the number of friends and relations who can receive subsidies.
If too much food is being produced then some farmers will go out of business and prices will go up for the rest, like how capitalism works for everything else. And I believe that actual farmers, rather than Manhattan "farmers" probably get very little per bushel.
Farm subsidies were a bad idea back during the Depression (like most of FDR's economics) and haven't improved since then.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/grassley-s-farm-bill-challenge-limit-subsidies-to-actual-farmers
...“I do not believe in unlimited subsidies, like are in the House farm bill,” said the senator during a speech at the think tank Heritage Foundation...
,,,Lawmakers have tussled over so-called payment limits for decades.
Large operators collect the lion’s share of subsidies because the payments are based on volume of production. If these large farms also have many people declared as “managers,” multiple people can claim a payment in the operation.
Grassley, however, believes the payments should be directed to family-size operations.
Defenders say crop subsidies are a small part of revenue for farmers and assure production of cotton, grains, and soybeans...
Simple explanation: Plenty of Manhattan residents are owners or investors in farms. You don’t have to live on a farm to own it.
Since the early days of farming, wealthy landowners would live in the city while actual rural farmers would lease the land or have other agreements.
I’m against farm subsidies but all our farmers would soon go out of business due to cheaper substandard produce from places like Mexico. We can ban them but good luck getting any fresh fruit in winter then
The same map might also show “Hawaiians” or “Bahamanians” because they might own property in those locations.
The question of where farm owners may be permitted to live is entirely separate from the question of farm subsidies (today, mainly subsidized crop insurance). There is always indignant grumping that the bulk of farm program payments flow to the big operators. But before saying, "just ditch the whole system," one should recognize that the subsidies are intended to protect mainly the hard-pressed smaller farmers. (About 150,000 large farms produce three quarters of the nation's food, feed and fiber; the smaller farms of 150-500 acres are very hard-pressed to compete with the big guys.) This leads to occasional calls to exclude larger farms from the support system. This is stupidity on stilts. We presumably should not want a farm policy that systematically discriminates against our most productive, most efficient and most innovative producers.
If we choose to eliminate the farm programs entirely, so be it. But understand that the likely consequence will be the rapid erosion of smaller producers. The big guys are competitive and will adapt readily to the loss of supports. They will happily buy out their smaller neighbors.
He raised angora goats.
The mohair presumably went to his toupes.
so if Manhattan residents are owners or investors in farms, then why do they need subsidies from govt? if they are owners they are not properly handling things if they keep needing $ help. If they are investors then they have enough $ and don’t need to suck up more of tax payer dollars - basically your comment says there are middlemen( investors) sucking tax dollars and supposedly giving them to farmers.
If Americans stopped purchasing the cheaper imports than that would soon dry up.
Where i live much is mexican produce and I just avoid it, even if it means I dont buy the veggies or fruit types I had hoped. Food choices are optional. Media and society have consumers shopping like fools as they suck up consumers hard earned money on this latest way of eating or power food or supplement or save a few cents while selling out the usa based small food companies, and such. I stopped buying into the scheme, just buy what’s american grown or manufactured and just simply alter my recipies etc to work with what I buy.
I am a real farmer, I don’t see any subsidies. I think they still do conservation reserve payments, they have a bunch of environmental programs which the government pays a portion of the implementation costs that are totally not worth it and they have really cheap fake and worthless insurance. I read the other ay that there will be some subsidy on cotton but that is usually based on price so with the prices of today they shouldn’t even kick in.
Because farmland has become so expensive, many who would farm can’t afford to buy and investors take the risk many real farmers can’t.
I’m just thinking of a few examples around here where wealthier people buy farms and farm them. What a colossal waste of resources, I’m glad they stay in Manhattan.
There is the old joke of how to become a millionaire farming: Start with 2 million.
If you own a farm and produce certain things, you are elegible for certain subsidies. It is irrelevant how rich the owner is.
The alternative is to allow most smaller commercial farms to die in America and depend entirely on overseas produce.
Or place a tarrif so overseas produce is competitive with American. Then many people who are barely suviving now would need subsidies to eat.
Or allow the standard of rural living in the USA to drop to levels in Mexico, etc.
I wanted to post a pic of Oliver and Lisa from “Green Acres,” but unfortunately for some reason it won’t let me.
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