Farm subsidies: we don't need them

This blog is some recycled material from my old blog. Enjoy!

“Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide. I have an idea that a lot of farmers have gone to a lot of trouble merely to be self-employed to live at least a part of their lives without a boss.”
-Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food

I read a heart wrenching article from the Washington Post this morning titled "Dairy farming is dying. After 40 years, I’m done." If you haven't read it you should. It really gives the reader a unique perspective on commodity farming. It is a story about a dairy farmer who quit because his farm was no longer economically viable. It is a story about how it wreaked havoc on his soul. This story has been told time and time again for decades. Dairy farming has far too long been a problem of oversupply. But the problem is more complex than simply blaming it on supply/demand. Government interference in the dairy marketplace has been disastrous. With small dairy farms a thing of the past, companies like Wal-Mart are vertically integrating and building their own dairies. These aren't the dairies like Jim Goodman's, these are massive concrete buildings that milk thousands of cows per day. This isn't farming it is "factory farming."

Let's get to the root of the problem. When I talk about commodity farming I am referring to crops, livestock or other products that are bought or sold on the marketplace. This commodity marketplace is riddled with corruption, price fixing and government subsidies. There is nothing inherently bad about commodity production. We need corn farmers, cow/calf operations, vegetables and everything else we love so dearly on our dinner plate. What we don't need is government interference in the marketplace through the misguided use of subsidies.

How did we go from having no role for the federal government in farming to having government intertwined in all aspects of farming from the ways seeds are planted to the price farmers are paid?

In the 1890s J. Sterling Morton famously stated when beet-sugar producers came to Washington for special help, “Those who raise corn should not be taxed to encourage those who desire to raise beets. The power to tax was never vested in a Government for the purpose of building up one class at the expense of other classes.” This philosophy was written into the Constitution just 140 years earlier by men who were farmers. When World War I ended the surrender burden enforced on the Central Powers of Europe bankrupted much of Europe, thus closing major export markets to the United States. This was the beginning of a series of events that would lead to a tradition of government support through agricultural price and income support policies, also known as agricultural subsidies. Nowadays we have government programs that span a broad spectrum of support, from purchasing heritage livestock to crop insurance and beyond.

The effect of subsides is clear, income is directly transferred from tax payers to farm owners. It’s the justification for subsidies that is complex and controversial. This is where my opinion as a direct market, local farmer comes in. To clear the air, our farm has not applied for or received a subsidy. I simply don’t believe in taking them. I believe it’s morally wrong for one reason: when I charge $5/lb for a whole chicken it is the real cost of producing that chicken with a very small profit margin to go towards future farm improvements. If I were to accept a subsidy it would be like telling my customers that this chicken is $15, but I am going to take an extra $1 from your pocket without you knowing through a government subsidy.

I can already hear my ears ringing!

If clean, local food is dependent on government money to survive then it’s not sustainable at all, it’s simply a fad. We don’t need regenerative agriculture to be another government program. The money is nice to build hoop houses and fences, but if that’s the only reason we are doing all this I don’t want to be a part of it. It’s time to get more creative and find a system that gets government money out of farming because every four or eight years half of the farmers will be elated and the other half won’t. Farmers will yo-yo through this cycle the rest of their lives.

We are in the infancy of the sustainable food movement and we have the opportunity as entrepreneurs to set ourselves up on a solid foundation based on sound business principles and true sustainability. I’m sorry for those who someday might lose their funding, but that’s the game you play when you play politics with food. Food should not be political because if you look at the history of when people use food as a political tool, it never worked out well. The vast majority of agriculture subsidies are bad for the taxpayer and bad for consumers. Essentially all they amount to is the corrupt transfer of unearned wealth to special interest groups.