Posted on 10/20/2023 10:22:13 AM PDT by george76
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a lack of farms throughout the country impacts families in more ways than one.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Illinois, and others discussed the state of farming in Illinois and elsewhere Monday in Kankakee. Vilsack told an agricultural panel that the country is losing farms in large quantities.
"I was surprised to learn that we've lost 438,000 farms since 1981," Vilsack said. "Just to give you a sense of how many farms that is, it is every farm in Iowa today, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, South Dekota, Nebraska and Colorado."
Over that same period, 141.1 million acres of former farmland are no longer being farmed today across the country.
Illinois is the top soybean producer in the country, with 15% of all U.S. soybeans being produced in Illinois. Vilsack said the lack of farms is impacting different areas.
"That's a lot of land," Vilsack said. "Are we OK with that?"
"It has an impact on communities because when you lose that many farms, you don't just lose those farms, you also lose the small businesses that depend on those farms," Vilsack said. "Which is why many small towns in this country today in rural places have empty storefronts."
According to Vilsack, the way to address the problems in farming is by creating more revenue streams for farmers, especially small and mid-sized farmers.
"The key here is for these farming operations in particular to have additional revenue streams that come in at the same time they're selling a crop, or selling livestock, or getting a government payment," Vilsack said.
Numbers from the Illinois Farm Bureau show that Illinois is the second top corn-producing state in the country, with 13% of our country's supply of corn being grown on Illinois farms. That farmland makes up 76% of Illinois land.
Why is he surprised? He runs the department.
Biden handlers targeting small businesses the same way Stalin targeted the Kulaks during the holodomor..
Biden handlers not only targeting small business truckers, also targeting family farms, manufacturing and restaurants ..
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/4183151/posts
So having more then tripled operation costs for small farmers with idiotically bad energy polices, the Biden regime wants to cry about how tough things are for small farmers?
BEST thing the Biden regime could do for farmers is mass resign today
It’s worldwide, and it’s not good.
I learned a lot of valuable lessons spending summers on my Aunt and Uncle’s farm.
Life and death.
You won’t have a good harvest if you don’t put in the work.
You don’t get to choose where the rain or hail falls.
We are governed by people who know nothing but city life.
Lost? How about some details. Were they combined into larger farms? Sold for urban development or energy production? Abandoned to wilderness? The “solution”, if there needs to be one, is different for each case. This looks like a case of agriculture bureaucrats setting themselves on fire to get more cash.
I’m in north central Indiana. Some of the best cropland there is because of the soil and the fact it doesn’t need irrigation
They are currently building, and proposing ten and ten of thousands of acres of solar panels
A lot of the leaseholders here are people who live elsewhere, but inherited the family farm
When this fad is over, the panel will go, but the structures and infrastructure will stay
Even once removed, it will take several years for that soil to get back to its potential
...When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.”...
JP Morgan Chase CEO - Jaime Dimon recommends Seizing Private Property for Wind Farms..
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4183174/posts
How much of the shrinkage in the number of farms is due to market conditions versus actions by federal governments under both Republicans and Democrats, even Reagan and Trump, that favored large agri businesses as opposed to family farms? The founders of this Republic, especially Thomas Jefferson, saw this country as being a mostly agricultural land, with the entire continent covered by small farms. They distrusted large cities and urban life.
we will rue the day we chased off the small farms...
even having a small garden, its a lot of work..every day....and it starts when you plant your first seed, to transplanting to a larger container, to putting it in the ground, nurturing it and fertilizing it and adding mulch and weeding and staking and finally the harvest which is a whole lot of work as well...
farmland and forest land is being gobbled up by developers....the land is more valuable as a condo coomplex then growing beans and tomatoes....
The small family farms can’t compete against the super sized family farms.
That is awful! What a waste of good cropland. We are fighting the takeover of the panels and windmills in Michigan, too.
All by design.
Large Argi-Businesses are no different than Soviet-style Kolkhozes.
We beat back a windfarm near me 10 years ago
Lots of non leaseholders affected and a 10 hour, overflowing gym meeting, we convinced the Board of Zoning Appeals to adopt a Property Value Guarantee
The developer swore up and down that it would have no effect on others, but the minute that was slapped on them, they packed up and left town
A lot of farmers here were smitten with the money they get from leases.
Our county slipped a windfarm through when residents knew little about them.
We’re in excavating and made a crapload of money from farmers who suddenly were getting those big checks each year
But the next proposed one pit neighbor against neighbor and family against family. It got really ugly
One big family I know with several thousand acres were split.
3 brothers control most of it. 2 went to Purdue with ag degrees, other went to IU Business and became a CPA. The family is his only clients
He spends his time looking to get government subsidies any way he can
A new baby born, it automatically gets a farm an becomes a corporation, which then gets its own subsidy
He’s always been quite open about telling me this
You’re damn right. My input costs have soared for diesel fuel, fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide. The grain markets, however, have tanked. Only 13 cents of every dollar spent at the grocery store goes to the American farmer/rancher. Somebody up the chain is making a shit load of money, but it ain’t the American farmer. Couple the above with two years of drought here in central Kansas and there isn’t a whole lot of money in the country right now. Oh well, the American farmer is the eternal optimist. “Next year will be better.”
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