[Conservative Goddess]

There's a school of thought that says a country should maintain enough production capacity for essentials to satisfy foundational needs during a war, famine, other disaster.

I oppose price supports for farmers....but I likewise oppose importing produce to the extent that we kill our own agricultural sector....precisely because we must be able to feed ourselves in time of war or famine.

Moreover, imported veggies carry nasty things like Hepatitis. Several people in Pittsburgh died a couple of years ago when Chi-Chi's served up some Hepatitis tainted green onions from Mexico. There's got to be some quality control.....and there's got to be a happy medium here.

BTW, my family owns a small family farm in Illinois...and they do receive minimal farm subsidies.

[Mase]

..but I likewise oppose importing produce to the extent that we kill our own agricultural sector....precisely because we must be able to feed ourselves in time of war or famine.

Our agriculture industry is extremely healthy and is hardly at risk of being killed from the importation of produce. I think domestic food producers have more to fear from our own home grown envirowacko's and toxic terrorists than they do from any foreign competitor.

If you look at the average income and average net worth of our farmers today you will find that the vast majority of them are doing very well.

Price supports and other welfare have little impact on price stability and supply. Price supports and conservation payments keep a lot of farm land idle every year. Removing these supports would force farmers to place that land into production which would increase the amount of food we produce as a nation. Farmers would have to begin growing products that we can produce more efficiently than our competition and we would, no doubt, lose some market share on products that can be produced more cheaply abroad - such as soybeans and sugar (beets).

The Heritage Foundation report on farm subsidies has this to say:

"Although the vast majority of farms are doing well financially, the growers of unsubsidized crops actually have enjoyed faster-rising incomes than subsidized farmers; the absence of government intrusion proved to be more important to farmers' success than subsidies. The innovation and responsiveness to the market exhibited by unregulated farmers were major factors in the 22 percent increase in farm productivity over the past decade--a rate that bodes well for their continued financial success. By all indications, the farming industry will be able to continue thriving without unneeded and counterproductive farm subsidies."

It's hard to imagine any scenario where we would ever be unable to feed ourselves. Any products we currently produce, that are lost in the future to foreign competition, could certainly be produced again here in a very short period of time. When you look at the large number of countries that are now producing an incredibly wide variety of foods (thanks to American knowledge and technology) it would require a doomsday situation for us not to have access to enough food to feed ourselves.