[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Quote of the Day posted by Travis McGee

[Smokin' Joe]

There is a saying among the disgruntled here in North Dakota, especially around Congressional election time...

"If the Congress keeps saving family farms at the rate it has the past two decades, they should all be gone in a few years."

Farming is a hard life, but when you factor out the apparent wealth tied up in the means of production (land and equipment) few farmers are "rich".

[quietolong]

Like to see some of these people put up a field of hay when it's 95/95%

[ko_kyi]

I think the leftist hostility comes from the belief that even small farmers are "rich", since they often own 2-5 million dollars worth of real estate. Most people don't realize how much land you have to work to have a household net income of say, $100,000/year after you pay for all the expenses and set enough aside to get through one or two bad years in a row.

[MJemison]

Thank you for posting this. It should also be noted that it is nearly impossible for US farmers to compete on a world market when their profit margins are so small. Few people realize how severely restricted US farmers are when growing crops. How many foreign nations who export foodstuffs to this country are restricting their grower's uses of DDT, lead arsenates, and other chemicals. Everyone here should think about that before popping those foreign-grown grapes into their mouths. And how do we know they are imported? We don't, because most packages aren't labeled, except those produced domestically. I buy nothing that is not labeled "Grown in (whatever state)" of the USA.

[Free the USA]

fyi

[Koblenz]

But why should the government subsidize for weather issues? They don't subsidize other industries for weather related issues? Foreign subsidies exist for many other industries: just because they do it, why should we? I am not against farmers, but I think that in reality, the most efficent farming is large corporate farms, not small family farms. Less capital equipment per acre, less labor per labor, etc. IF we had no subsidies, we'd lose most family farms. But we'd have a streamlined, corporate farming sector.

As for the loss of the family farm? Well, no one makes cars in their garage anymore either, and only about 10 companies have 99% of the market share.

[NYCop]

I know firsthand how hard the average farmer works, and by no means are they rich. To all my friends in the cornbelt, we salute your efforts and someday you'll be appreciated...

[solo gringo]

We just received our insurance settlement on our disaster insurance.It was a joke it did not cover the cost of the propane to burn prickley pear must less other types of medicine or other health products for the livestock.the only was anyone can make money is the was hillary did it.we were up at 6am burning and doing what ever to keep our herd healthy our labor was for free.

[glc1173@aol.com]

The "chattering classes" - overwhelmingly in Manhattan and Washington - want to bash farmers?

Time for a one-week "vacation" from food shipments to alert them to the relative importance of Red Nation farmers and Blue Nation talkingheads to Blue Nation!

[Richard Kimball]

When I clicked on this thread, I thought it was about Zimbabwe.

[Consort]

[Tailgunner Joe]

bttt