yep
Nobody but farmers know the risks that come from every direction whether it be weather, bugs, disease etc.
While I don’t support the moochers of government farm payments, there are most often very legitimate reasons we should support farmers in their highly risky businesses. These difficulties like weather often effect entire regions where hundreds of thousands are legitimately struggling to make ends meet. And sometimes not succeeding.
Meanwhile fuel prices, repairs, implements, fertilizer, chemicals, seed prices, crop insurance...all go up.
I have little patience for some on this forum who think that every government farm bill is automatically bad and corrupt.
Hi you 2. The word from my FIL is that the corn IS planted in IL on the family farms, and is BEING planted on the ones in IN.
DTN reported last Friday—House and Senate farm-bill negotiators agreed to a budget framework that could lead to completion of the farm bill within the next two weeks. The bill will spend about $607 billion over 10 years, of which more than $400 billion will go toward nutrition programs.
Minor cuts in direct payments are expected, but it has not been defined how those cuts will be implemented or who they will affect.
Did you realize that this level of agricultural spending is still only one percent of the total U.S. government budget? Is investing one percent of the total U.S. budget justified in keeping the safest and most stable food supply in the world?
Look at these statistics:
• $251.4 billion was earmarked directly for entitlement programs - that is 57.7 percent of the total $435.2 billion authorized spending level.
• $17.079 billion was earmarked for conservation of our natural resources in the U.S. - this amounts to 23 percent of the total.
• Worth mentioning is that $1.323 billion was to be spent on Research for Future Agriculture and Food Systems, Organic Agriculture and Youth Organizations - amounting to 1.8 percent of the total
• Only $1.144 billion will be spent on trade programs including Food for Progress and International Food for Education - accounting for 1.6 percent of the total.
• This leaves 15.9 percent to spend directly on agricultural commodity programs and the like.
• Governments in post-World War II Europe experienced what famine and starvation was all about. Since that time they have built national food security programs that virtually guarantee their citizens never will run out of staple food commodities again.
Consequently the European Union (EU) is the U.S.'s most formidable competitor in world agricultural trade. That is why the EU is out-spending the U.S. $87 to $1 on exporting its surplus agricultural commodities. During a year's time, EU countries spend $277 per acre while the U.S. spends only $48 per acre on its domestic agricultural spending. (Tim Semler Bottineau Co. Extension agent)
An important reminder about what's at stake. I have long supported lowering the Caps on farm payments. My Senator, Chuck Grassley, worked hard to get the Caps lowered when he was Budget Chair, but the Southern States have the upper hand, and have been able to maintain the existing Caps.
Good morning. I have the highest respect and admiration for farmers, and so do my sons, who worked summers on a truck farm.
My husband told them that future jobs that they ever had would seem easier compared to those summers working on the farm.
One of my sons wrote a paper on the economics of farming during his pursuit of an MBA degree. (He got an A..!!)