Posted on 05/12/2019 5:29:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
I grew up on an Iowa farm surrounded by fields of black dirt. Every spring our crops burst forth from the ground full of life and opportunity. I was a boy working side-by side with his dad and grandpa too. It’s a story that in my lifetime has all but disappeared in Iowa. Small family farms have been replaced by corporate growers with thousands of acres. Family farm or corporate group, the rich soil of Iowa and the Midwest has been feeding the world for many years and with support from our nation it will continue do so.
After centuries of agriculture being a bedrock of American society and the national economy, the country’s farming sector now finds itself suffering from insufficient governmental investment. This has affected all facets of the industry, including a research and development (R&D) arm that desperately requires capital to pursue technological innovations in the field.
In the current environment, these advancements are more critical than ever. With the world’s population projected to balloon up to almost 10 billion by 2050, overall food production demand is also expected to increase by as much as 70 percent. Factor in the other obstacles facing today’s modern farmer, such as deadly livestock diseases and the damage brought on crops by climate calamities, and it’s clear that this most crucial aspect of American society is being neglected right when it needs governmental attention and support the most.
Agriculture remains a key cornerstone of the US economy, contributing $1 trillion to GDP and accounting for one in 10 jobs nationwide. However, governmental support for the industry has fallen sharply in recent years; in 1940, agriculture received as much as 40 percent of the overall budget earmarked for R&D, while today it receives less than 2 percent. This is despite the fact that investment in the sector has an estimated return of as much as 20 to one, raising questions about why the government isn’t devoting more funds towards it.
The drop-off in investment has come at a time when farmers are struggling to make ends meet. While beef production rates have steadily increased over the last five years, so too have prices – and at an unsustainable speed. Hamburger meat, for example, has shot up at over double the rate of general inflation, while the ongoing trade war with China has removed the market for many US staples, sending prices crashing to rock-bottom levels.
These kinds of difficulties have forced many farmers out of business (auctioneering firms specializing in selling off farm equipment from retiring families have seen business boom by 30 percent compared to last year). Meanwhile, the average age of farmers has increased from 50 in 1974 to 58 today, as young people leave the profession in search of more profitable pastures. Workers are also harder to come by; at the start of the 20th century, one in three Americans lived on farms, but today less than 1 percent of the population does. What’s more, mass migration towards urban metropoles have made farming an unfeasible career option.
This diminishing agricultural army is now not only short of manpower and of the funds to finance them, but is also running up against bigger, less predictable and more damaging foes than ever before. New and invasive diseases such as Bovine Respiratory Disease – which affects more than one in five US cattle and costs the industry an estimated $692 million each year – make it harder for farmers to achieve their necessary quotas and turn a profit.
Flooding has hurt farmers this year. The excessive flooding that plagued one million acres of farmland in the Midwest this spring is estimated to have cost the national economy a whopping $12.5 billion, with the agricultural industry bearing the brunt of that shortfall. The government has also indicated that its disaster fund will not be applicable to crops or profits lost in the phenomenon, leaving farmers out of pocket to the tune of millions of dollars.
While the above outlook may sound bleak, the good news is that there are a number of potential solutions to these problems, notably technological innovation. A shortage in labor could theoretically be addressed by a mechanical workforce, with plans already afoot to use machines at the seeding, spraying and harvesting stage in projects as diverse as robotic strawberry pickers, self-driving tractors and weed-detecting automatons.
In a world where over 70 percent of our freshwater is consumed by the agricultural industry, these kinds of resource-saving technologies could prove to be invaluable. At the same time, precision agriculture is expected to reduce herbicide consumption by as much as 90 percent, curbing the number of harmful contaminants the Earth is subjected to and optimizing crop growth in one fell swoop. Simply put, technology has the potential to be a no-brainer cure-all for all the industry’s ills.
Of course, these kinds of optimistic predictions are still some way from fruition and even further from mass adoption. However, with the right financial backing behind them, there’s no reason why they couldn’t provide the answer to the agricultural quandary that the world so desperately demands. Instead, it seems as though the US government have put the industry out to pasture at exactly the time when it is needed the most.
It’s no surprise that China – which invests nearly twice as much as the US in agricultural science – have an overall output that is worth over double America’s. Instead of shying away from the farming community that has provided the country’s backbone for so long, it’s time the government stood up straight and supported its agricultural sector with the funds it needs to allow the country to become the industry forerunner that it is clearly so capable of being.
Iowa is as liberal as CA but they have that magical, unconstitutional early voting. So, i would be willing to throw tax dollars at iowa if they are willing to give up their political power.
It used to be important to this country to have a 3 year reserve. Now if we don’t use the last bushel of old crop the same day the new crop comes in, we screwed up.
Food security used to be important, now we worry if there are enough butt plugs...………………...
Like Big Trucking, Big Farming can only exist pumped up on the backs of subsidies and regulations.
The U.S. Chamber of Socialist Commerce wants their Big Regulations.
Estate taxes cause small family farms to have to be sold to pay death taxes.
The reason it is sold is the heirs want the money, not the farm. The EXCUSE is death taxes.
We all know what an investment really is - it's a capital acquisition that has a reasonable probability of providing a periodic return so as to repay the investment with interest, you know, like putting money into a property that you can rent or building a house you can sell or acquiring a machine tool to make parts that can be sold at market prices to recoup the cost of the machine and pay the labor and material expenses involved.
A piece of fallow land is not an investment - it's speculation. A government "investment" is even worse. It's not even good speculation.
What advantage do we get from a strong military budget? We spend billions upon billions, nay, trillions...just in case. We spend huge amounts on weapons and bombs that, God-willing, we will never use but I would never argue against a strong military.
And yet...what is more important to the defense of our country than food security. Cut off the supply lines and you can defeat your enemies.
In time of war would you trust a foreign country to feed the USA? I wouldn’t.
I don’t know about you but I can live a long, full life w/o a toaster oven, the same can’t be said about food.
You can plant a seed and have grain in 3 months. You cannot build a tank factory in 3 months and fight a war at the same time.
At the same time, precision agriculture is expected to reduce herbicide consumption by as much as 90 percent, curbing the number of harmful contaminants the Earth is subjected to and optimizing crop growth in one fell swoop. Simply put, technology has the potential to be a no-brainer cure-all for all the industry’s ills.
Just like global warming, the sun has more to do with agriculture that man. We have had some good production years but that may be changing. Not that technology isn’t important.
I worked with farmers for many years. The management target was maximum yield NOT maximin profit. There is a difference.
Precision farming? yes, nice graphs and pictures but then the rate of fertilizer is for the max yield which is only 1 in ten. If one part of the field looked poorly it is because your precision fertilizer and herbicide application caused it. So...……………………… human psychology says max rates on the whole farm so there is no blame. BUT AGAIN, NICE COLOR GRAPHS.
My observation. Technology added a cost with no return. But again, profit was not the goal.
What determines the herbicide application rate? The recommended rate on the package, else the warrantee is not any good. Not that the warrantee is of much value anyway.
The only management decision farmers make anymore is what color paint is on the machinery.
Agriculture is still the most pure capitalism we have in the USA, even with all the government and large business “help”. We can all complain with our mouth full.
The government is not the answer.
If they are corporate farms, it’s up to the corporations to come up with the capital.
And, like pornography, you know it when you see it.
The worst form of heart disease is having a bitter one.
“...the country’s farming sector now finds itself suffering from insufficient governmental investment.”
The more the government is involved the more you will suffer.
.what is more important to the defense of our country than food security.
The 3 year reserve was one of the few government programs that made sense, yet no one liked it, and I mean no one.
The government is not the answer.
Now, name me one part of the economy where the government ISN’T. It is part of the equation that has to be dealt with in all aspects of our life.
Now regarding agriculture, the amazing thing is not that it is all screwed up, THE AMAZING THING IS THAT IT WORKS AT ALL.
The guy is simply lying about Iowa. The ‘corporations’ he claims are taking over are simply the same family farmers incorporating to escape taxes, especially estate taxes.
Giant corporations own a tiny percent of farmland.
Family farms incorporating themselves has led to the situation where only a handful of Iowa family farms pay estate taxes.
This guy is nuts if he thinks there’s not enough farm investment. Modern ag of any kind is extremely capital intensive and anyone with land or an ag management background can get what they need now.
Tractor monkeys need to compete ...
**********
US companies that produce tractors are putting themselves out of business by building tractors NOBODY wants ,, they’re loaded with electronics that are only accessible by the factory tools... it costs thousands of dollars in diagnostics by a factory dealership to diagnose a bad $0.05 pin in a wiring harness ... That’s why turd world tractor producers are selling so many tractors here ,,, their machines can be fixed by the owners easily.
True - but by the same token, as Charlie Daniels put in a song, “If the man don’t work, the People don’t eat.”
The government is not the answer.
If they are corporate farms, it’s up to the corporations to come up with the capital.
Thanks for posting this.
We have a friend, who like us is either 80 or pushing 80.
He still works 3 days a week selling incredible and modern farm equipment.
One of the products he sells is a heavy duty brush remover and plower of the land. In one day a 3 man crew can remove more brush and plow more land than crews of a dozen illegals can remove in a couple of weeks.
His territory is Oregone, Arizona and California.
His biggest competition is the do gooders providing tax payer housing, medical care, schooling to the illegals and their families.
The past two years, a lot of that taxpayer funding is drying up, and the farmers and ranchers are lining up to buy or lease his equipment or competitors.
Of course the public schools and those giving our tax $’s to the illegals are still his biggest covert competitors.
Fixed it.
Wait. Someone is arguong that Agribusiness doesn’t get enough govt subsidies?
You are correct! Even families are combining farms while incorporating to maximize profits as well.
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