Posted on 02/15/2002 2:58:58 PM PST by RJCogburn
Farmers: Get a Job!
It kind of makes me wonder what country I'm living in when I pick up the newspaper and read this from the Associated Press:
"With crop prices mired near record lows, the government says farm earnings will drop 20 percent this year unless Congress enacts a new farm program or approves more emergency payments."
Hello? Is this free enterprise, profit-and-loss America, or have I crossed over into the Twilight Zone: Welcome to Cuba?
Before we dissect this "news," let's step back and appreciate the big picture. For many years the environmental movement has been warning that the out-of-control human race will imminently starve itself to death because of the Malthusian notion that population growth will outstrip food production.
Well, it hasn't quite worked that way. Instead of starving people and wealthy farmers (which is what should have happened if the doomsayers were right), we have fat people (see the recent Surgeon General's report) and farmers bellyaching about low crop prices.
The bad news, then, is good.
Getting back to the AP story: I'm a magazine editor, and I have yet to read in the newspaper that "editors' earnings will drop 20 percent this year unless Congress enacts a new editor program or approves more emergency payments." Do you know what I and my fellow editors have to do if our earnings drop to a level too low to live on? We have to look for higher-paying jobs! I assume that mechanics and real-estate salesman have to do the same.
But not the farmers. They have apparently been bestowed with the Divine Right to Farm. If they can't make enough to live on, they have the legal power to loot the rest of us so they can stay on the farm anyway. This sounds like insanity. Would someone please explain it to me?
Maybe the yeoman farmer, the noble man of the soil, is too busy lobbying for taxpayer subsidies to learn a little economics. But when a line of work won't pay a satisfactory income, it is the market's way of saying we have enough people doing that; go find something else to do. Why should farmers be an exception to a perfectly good rule?
An economist at Texas A&M was quoted saying, "Congress is looking at these numbers and saying, 'We can't live with that.'" Hah! He means that members of Congress won't let us taxpayers live with that, since they aren't planning to subsidize the farmers out of their own pockets. I can live with it, thank you. Besides, I gave last year, and the year before. I'm thinking it's time for the farmers to stand on their own two feet.
Do you realize that 30 percent of the wheat farmers' gross income comes from the government? Thirty percent! The guys that grow other grains and soybeans get 20 percent of their income from Washington. Can you say "socialized agriculture"?
I know how the farmers would respond. They need special treatment because they have to contend with the weather and price fluctuations. Like that's something new. Farmers have been plagued by drought, floods, and pests since biblical times. Uncertain prices are just as old. Guess what: the free market long ago evolved ways for farmers to transfer the risks to people willing to accept them in return for the prospect of high profits. They're called insurance and futures markets. The government has screwed up crop insurance because it thinks it can handle it better than private companies. The futures markets still work. The principle is simple. A farmer doesn't know what the price of his crop will be when he plants it. But there have always been risk-takers who are willing to bet that the price will be even higher than the farmer is happy to accept. So the risk-taker promises to buy the crop from the farmer at an agreed-on price. That gives the farmer a guarantee against a lower price and the risk-taker the chance for a real killing. Everyone is happy.
In other words, farmers don't warrant special treatment. Capitalist technological advances have made it possible to grow more food on less land and with fewer farmers. Why don't we face it already?
By the way, do you eat?
Your logic would work if you were talking about manufactured goods. But you're not, and you evidently enjoy showing off your ignorance. Say a farmer has a 100 acre field. He can only produce 500 bushels of wheat off of it. Then the price suddenly drops. He can't just produce more off of that field in order to try and recoup losses, he just has to sell at the lower price.
Basic cereal (we can't get much more than that, LOL!) costs about $2.50-$3.50 for a large box in Sweden--I'm just answering the question! Chicken, however, is like $6.50/lb.!
Ok, so what? And why does the price "suddenly drop"? Magic, or too many farmers cranking out too much of the same stuff?
Sounds a whole lot like supply and demand to me - you know, the concept that governs any commodity business.
Nobody said being in business was easy; the solution, if you can't hack it, is not to bribe politicians to go grab somebody else's money and give it to you. Why do you deserve the money more than those who earned it, anyway? Presumably, those people produced a product or service that others wanted, at a price that was profitable. So why do you deserve to have that money if you didn't earn it?
Being adept at bribing politicians shouldn't be the basis of one's income. Time for Welfare Farmers to get their hands out of other citizens' pockets; there is NO justification to steal other people's money, no matter how much you try to dress it up Norman-Rockwell style.
Answer: For the 48 oz. box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes which will cost probably more than $4.00 at your local supermarket, the farmer gets less than 3 cents.
So what's your point? Seems to me that farmers ought to explore getting into the box business.
Or, perhaps, if they have that little leverage, we have 'way too many farmers.
Let the free market decide; Big Stupid Government theft does nothing but distort the market at the expense of productive people, rewarding Welfare Farmers for being good lobbyiests.
I don't think that's what the Founding Fathers had in mind; do you?
Is theft ok if it benefits the "right" people?
I say screw it: kill the subsidies NOW. We won't starve. We're the United Damn States of America. We'll be fine.
It's hard to understand how so many people can be such weenies about being productive and self-reliant. I guess that's what welfare will do to you - it robs you of self-respect and self-reliance, doesn't it?
Well, guess what? We're tired of these lame threats. Damn tired. We do NOT believe you!
Tell you what - let's try it. Let's get Welfare Farmers off the taxpayer tit. I dare you. We'll be fine.
Some years, apples in Washington State were plentiful, others very few loads. It all depended on the weather, and how much rain, frost, wind or insects they got. When the first frosts came in the spring, what month. Or did they get a warm spell in the winter and the trees budded then another month of winter weather and killed the fresh buds. Did the cold weather come down from Canada or up from Oregon? That was the decider on whether apples would be plentiful in the Northern Counties or the Southern Counties. Once the trees budded did a strong wind come through the area and blow half the buds off the trees, or did a strong rain come in wash the buds off the trees just before they reached period when they would germinate the other trees? In mid growing season did the rain keep coming or stop? Did the winds bring in a heavy bark insect infestation. Was the weather good for the apple worms in the North or the South that year? Those were the deciding factors on where the loads came from and it also decided if the farmers made money or lost money that year? Some years the Northern Counties would do great and the Southern Counties would have another year of 40% production. It also decided if the price of apple sauce was cheap in the stores and the price of apples was high.
How do you keep a trucking company operating with the drivers, mechanics, dispatchers working when there isn't enough produce loads within 300 miles to keep everyone working 5 days a week? It's simple you can't.
So that is why produce is hauled by the "independants". The guys who are willing to live on the road 28 days a month. The guys who never knew what section of North America the work would be in that year. By the way, the processing plants don't move every year.
That's my experiences with apple produce growers. I hauled everything from apples to frozen orange juice and dry frieght. Now, if you want my experiences with cattle ranching I can go on for days. Do you really want to know why the price of baled hay goes from $40.00 a ton to $200.00 a ton in one year? Then you pay the phone bill and give me a call sometime.
yeah, i grew up on a dairy farm in the '50s on the great plains. my father and brother are still doing that, working 365 days a year from 5am-9pm because they cannot get hired help. my father's 87, going on 88, and still going strong.
there's no money in it for the small (300 holsteins) family farm.
and the big guys (2000+ cows)get the large government subsidies, while using illegals.
I assume then, that when farmers have an especially good year, they return money to the treasury?
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