Posted on 02/27/2009 2:07:46 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
As our government enacts a stimulus package and President Barack 0bama announces bold initiatives to stem home mortgage foreclosures, disaster threatens family farmers and their communities.
The government's response to plummeting commodity prices and tightening credit markets leads to the basic question: Who will produce our food? This is a worldwide crisis. U.S. policy and the demand for deregulation at all levels -- from food production to financial markets -- contribute greatly to the global collapse. The solution must be grounded in food sovereignty so that all farmers and their communities can regain control over their food supply. This response makes sense here in Wisconsin and was the global message from the 500+ farmer leaders at the Via Campesina conference in Mozambique in October.
Many U.S. farmers are going out of business because they receive prices equal to about one half their cost to produce our food. How long could any enterprise receiving half the amount of its input costs stay in business? As an example, dairy farmers in the Northeast and Midwest must be paid between 30 and 35 cents per pound for their milk to pay production costs and provide basic living expenses. Until 1980, farmers received a price equal to 80 percent of parity, meaning that farmers' purchasing power kept up with the rest of the economy. Unfortunately, a 1981 political decision discontinued parity, and today the dairy farmers' share is below 40 percent.
"Free trade" and other regressive agricultural policies have decimated farms. We are now a food deficit nation dependent on food imports, often of questionable quality.
Our food system is nearly broke, which is almost as serious as our country's financial meltdown. With fair farm policies, farmers would get fair prices that would not require higher consumers prices. The Canadian dairy pricing system is the best example that proves fair farmer prices can and often do bring lower consumer prices and a healthier rural economy. In addition, excessive middleman profits are taking advantage of both consumers and producers.
As more farmers face bankruptcy, we all face a food emergency. European farmers speak from thousands of years of experience on the importance of family farms when they warn us, "Any time a country neglects its family farm base and allows it to become financially bankrupt, the entire economy of that country will soon collapse. It may take generations to rebuild the farm economy and that of the country."
Despite the magnitude of this food emergency, the "farm crisis" does not appear in headlines, so politicians are not compelled to provide political or financial assistance to something that would likely fail to bring votes. As farmers, we are now only about 1 percent of the U.S. population, and have little power to expose and prevent our demise. However, our urban and rural friends could be vital voices and advocates.
Bailing out the financial giants will not solve the financial crisis in the country, but the right policies and stimulus dollars could prevent a severe food crisis by saving farmers and workers. Furthermore, farm income dollars remain in and multiply at least two to four times in the local economy.
Family farmers have proposed fair food and farm policies that can be implemented at a fraction of the present multibillion-dollar policies destroying us. As the Treasury Department develops plans to distribute the bailout funds, the National Family Farm Coalition and others urge it to require banks receiving funds to treat their borrowers fairly by providing debt restructuring as an alternate to home or farm foreclosure or bankruptcy.
Concerned citizens can call the White House, 202-456-1111, or your members of Congress, 202-224-3121, to urge them to support policies that enable farmers to earn a fair market price; request an emergency milk price at $17.50 per hundred weight; provide price stability through government grain reserves and effective supply management; support the TRADE Act to be reintroduced in Congress; increase direct and guaranteed loans to family farmers; and ensure that the food we raise can be marketed to local schools and institutions, providing a better food supply at a fair price. We need these immediate changes in our food and farm policy.
(John Kinsman, a dairy farmer from La Valle, is president of Family Farm Defenders, based in Madison.)
Thanks, Di! Much better than my short version.
I AM at “work” LOL
Yup, as I said, I know’em when I see’em. Was just curious as to why they are called what they are called.
Thank you both.
It’s supposed to start raining later this morning and continue through at least Monday, with a nor’easter in the mix overnight Sunday and they are still calling for that to bring snow. Which may just turn into the first (and probably only) real snow of the season.
I want SPRING and I want it NOW.
I’m the other way, never had any experience with ornamentals, all of my gardening has been veggies. Even so, I’m about as far from expert as one can be and still manage to eat from the garden. =-)
One thing that helps me is reading anything and everything about gardening I can find and keeping notes. Like you my parents have always had a garden and I learned much from them, but there’s always something you don’t know.
What kind of roses are you growing? My mother has a wild one with tiny blooms she has been working on taming but it’s slow going, my only use for it is making tea from the hips.
That’s it. Food shortages govt handouts are a great means of population control.
(There’s a world drought underway and this guy thinks commodity prices are crashing ~ he should wait a few weeks.)
I’ve noticed this as well. Do you know what the heck is going on with the drought? Why this is happening?
I think I put my blackberry bushes in too soon. We’re dropping below freezing for the first time in weeks tonight.
I’ll wrap them up and pray. :-(
Yeah, we’ve got the same forecast—and we’ve already had snow THREE times this year! What’s up with that? We’re farther south than you are!
Our oaks and red maples are already budding out. Gonna get nipped Mon for sure.
While our temps dropped drastically, there’s no call for frost for the coming week, even though they are calling for snow.
The grapes my husband put in yesterday are mature vines which he cut back before digging up. Hopefully they will take.
We’re supposed to drop down to 27’ tonight here in central Texas. Would you wrap your bushes if you were in my shoes?
(I’ve never planted bushes or trees before and I’d really appreciate some advice! The 2 year old bushes and the one tree I just planted were pricey and I’d hate to kill them right out of the box!)
have a URL for non-hybrid seeds that you’d care to share?
ty!
=)
would be interested in your seed source too!
if’n you wouldn’t mind sharing!
ty!
Because senators like dick lugar, who own farms, vote themselves subsidies.
Looking at what's going on with USPS (which I use as a gigantic continent size weather gauge) I suspect we're looking at a whizbang like those that caused the famines in the 1800s, or maybe even the 17 year drought that occurred between the Walter Raleigh settlement experiment and the first settlement of Jamestown.
There was so little rain they had salt water all the way to the Fall Line PLUS the Spanish had retreated up the James River much further than they'd ever intended.
I think it's the nature of the peninsula I live on. Where I live it's only 30 miles across from the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic Ocean and it does really weird things with the weather.
But like you, we've got the best of all worlds here. Hunting, fishing, and farming are major ways of life here. None of us are gonna starve!!!
Yes, I would. It can't hurt them, and it's better to be safe than sorry.
The company I ordered from is named Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and the prices are very reasonable.
You can order a free catalog from the website, that’s how I ordered.
We’re not on a peninsula, but if you look at a map of NC, we’re the point that sticks out just below Hatteras and just above Wilmington. = hurricane magnet. :)
It’s a good 20 mile to drive to the ocean—bridges—but as the crow flies or by water, from my house to open water, -2 miles.
I know the question wasn't directed at me, but since I'm here and have my catalogs on my desk, I'll share the ones I've got.
To me the absolute best place for heirloom seeds (non-hybrid) is Seed Savers Exchange
We'll have to wait for Diana for the Jung's URL, for some reason that catalog isn't in my stack at the moment. I think a friend has it right now.
Burpee's catalog has some heirlooms, but you have to look for them.
Seed Savers is still the best way to go, IMHO if you only want heirlooms, because that is all they have.
I forgot about Baker Creek!!!! Silly me.
Cool. Snow would be a good thing.
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