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03-04-2011, 09:02 PM   #1
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Know any farmers??

I'm not sure whether this should be political in nature or not. I must confess that I don't fully understand the farm subsidy business. That being said, I found this searchable database quite interesting. Many of my friends and relatives are on this list as having collected a fair amount of money over they years. Again, not criticizing the program...just thought it was interesting. Although, I do know quite a few personally on this list that have farmland for nothing more than a tax shelter and they do plow the soil to make it look good.

United States Farm Subsidy Search || EWG Farm Subsidy Database

03-04-2011, 10:45 PM   #2
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I have friends who are farmers. Most of them are hanging on by a thread.
03-05-2011, 07:37 AM   #3
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Here in Vermont, there used to be over 5000 small dairy farms, and now I think its just under 100 or so. We have the north east dairy coop, which helps the remaining farmers stay afloat, but I find it insane that milk sells for 4-5 dollars a gallon, but the farmers get 10 cents a hundredweight for the raw milk. Food is soooo expensive, and yet, why don't we see rich farmers?

Up here, we have Bernie Sanders as one of our senators. He gets it. He really pushed for the NEDcoop.

Unfortunately, with the demise of the small independent farmer, big agribusiness has taken it's place, and actually you will find that big agribusiness gets most of the farm subsidy money, at least that seems to be how it works up here.
03-05-2011, 07:46 AM   #4
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QuoteOriginally posted by Oso Quote
Here in Vermont, there used to be over 5000 small dairy farms, and now I think its just under 100 or so. We have the north east dairy coop, which helps the remaining farmers stay afloat, but I find it insane that milk sells for 4-5 dollars a gallon, but the farmers get 10 cents a hundredweight for the raw milk. Food is soooo expensive, and yet, why don't we see rich farmers?

Up here, we have Bernie Sanders as one of our senators. He gets it. He really pushed for the NEDcoop.

Unfortunately, with the demise of the small independent farmer, big agribusiness has taken it's place, and actually you will find that big agribusiness gets most of the farm subsidy money, at least that seems to be how it works up here.
Yes, it's pretty much the same across the border here in NY. The small, independent dairy farmers are being kept alive by Ben & Jerry and Stewarts, not govt. subsidies.

03-05-2011, 11:13 AM   #5
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Yeah, I know a few sets of small-farmers. While there's certainly a lot of big-money abuse of the system for agribusiness and breaks on real estate, some of those government programs help: the problem is that most of it, even a lot of price support, goes to agribusiness profit margins, not the farmers.

Some of the programs actually are really important to keep those small outfits going and partly have served to keep some farmland arable rather than a site for more sprawl and real estate speculation, (But I suppose even that's been something, even if it's kind of not really what the subsidies/tax breaks are for, when it comes to some of this.)

Some areas just get these exemptions to various purposes, but funny enough, if we get our house in a suitable locale, I've actually been kind of planning on a bit of small-scale agriculture: whatever I can keep up with. Some of my farming-friends have offered me hop vines: I think it'd be nice to grow em on a nice big grape arbor: they can provide some shade and I could do a lot of the tending there. A hen or three, some angora bunnies for the wool... Greenhouse for sweetie's herbs and seedlings.... Sweetie's talking about a goat, even. I like goats, but will I be up to regular milkings... I dunno. And if there happens to be a little patch of land I might offer the use of it to some friends better able to grow something on there. Like they aren't busy enough,but something might work out to be worthwhile.

So, you never know, could be a little small-scale agriculture on such a plot after all. It's hard to make a living with a small farm, but it always seems there's a little more that someone could do.

There's one little place that is somewhere not near our friends which would be just lovely for stuff like this. (Though, hrm, I have an underemployed friend in the area who might just be able to grow some veggies there on a 'You do most of the work, you get most of the take' basis. )

Or I could end up hiring some of that migrant day-labor. Or hippies. Heh. That'd be a piece of irony. I actually tried doing some of that work when I was particularly-poor... I was really sick, anyway, but I didn't last five minutes out in that Sun.


Anyway, the land-subsidies thing is pretty messed-up: you should see how much some of the GOP in Congress actually cash huge checks from it, without growing so much as a bean sprout.

Little doc called 'Food, Inc' gets into a lot of how this agribusiness and stuff works.
03-05-2011, 01:23 PM   #6
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That was my point. I hope no one here thought I was trying to vilify the REAL farmers out there. It's just sad to see how abused yet another system is and the money that is put into the right hand while the left hand is preaching about waste and entitlements. Business people who pretend to be farmers for an easy buck.

QuoteOriginally posted by Ratmagiclady Quote
Anyway, the land-subsidies thing is pretty messed-up: you should see how much some of the GOP in Congress actually cash huge checks from it, without growing so much as a bean sprout.
.
03-05-2011, 02:26 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by larryinlc Quote
That was my point. I hope no one here thought I was trying to vilify the REAL farmers out there. It's just sad to see how abused yet another system is and the money that is put into the right hand while the left hand is preaching about waste and entitlements. Business people who pretend to be farmers for an easy buck.
True. I happen to be more in a mood to talk about happier things, though. After a bout of *ow* yesterday and a big teaser about an early Spring down here. (Hope we don't have killing frosts, a lot of things are in bud and even flower already.) May not be a mood to bring to P&R, but here we are. Quiet day, anyway, it seems.

Do like the thought of some living, growing things around. Does make me wonder if any of that stuff'd actually help make a little urban/semi-urban permaculture viable. Things I can do something about are a lot more cheerful. Maybe even monkeying with some of this system for what it's actually for, even.

03-06-2011, 11:42 AM   #8
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An interesting ittle bit came up in the news today, made me think of this thread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/us/06farmers.html?_r=1
03-06-2011, 11:26 PM   #9
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The small farmer is likely to soon make a comeback as oil prices rise and especially if fuel supplies get short. It is going to be a painful transition though. The Amish farmers here in Northern NY seem to be prospering. A lot of other farmers are taking a serious look at their methods.
03-07-2011, 08:04 AM   #10
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In my neighborhood there are a lot of people with backyard farms, but I don't think any of them qualify for these subsidies since we are in an urban setting and the farmers are all Vietnamese so they probably don't know the bureaucratic ropes to cash in on the government money. But they are very good and every week there is a farmer's market where I get most of my fruits, veggies, and seafood. There are also a few neighborhood markets where almost all the veggies and a lot of the fruit comes from the neighborhood.
03-07-2011, 08:39 AM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by reeftool Quote
The small farmer is likely to soon make a comeback as oil prices rise and especially if fuel supplies get short. It is going to be a painful transition though. The Amish farmers here in Northern NY seem to be prospering. A lot of other farmers are taking a serious look at their methods.

Yeah, I've always worried about the expertise gap on a lot of stuff like this, big business has been making us as dependent on itself as it can for too long on a lot of fronts.

Too much is dependent on too few things for my comfort out there, (like oil and the price thereof, as we may be about to find out *again,* ) so it's always good to see a diversity of ways-of-getting-by out there.

People tend to think in terms of either denial or perhaps inflating 'doomsday' scenarioes to the *point* of denial, but as a society we really need more of a buffer out there, in terms of energy and food diversity, not just more and more dependence on heavier-handed measures and more and more, shipping of stuff all over.

Local economies and local agriculture can make a great price buffer, if nothing else. (Just as having a certain amount of stuff shipped around when you need to can buffer such things as local crop failures and all, as long as there's enough diversity on various levels. One thing my life's taught me is that it's never a good position to be leaning too heavily on any one thing. Could be some Amish (And a few Pagan homesteaders: isn't *That* an unlikely-sounding combination. ) might be more relevant than some expect.

Can really be a big part of the solution, all this, I think, on a lot of levels.

Could be one of those months where we have a chance to see some of what all this means, especially depending on how the weather shapes up.
03-07-2011, 11:22 PM   #12
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A lesson that we all should have learned in 2008 was just how fragile this house of cards economic system we live in is. A hurricane and an insurance company with a cash flow problem started a chain reaction that almost brought down the country. Having a good healthy number of local farmers will make a huge difference if large corporations go bankrupt.
03-08-2011, 07:33 AM   #13
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QuoteOriginally posted by reeftool Quote
A lesson that we all should have learned in 2008 was just how fragile this house of cards economic system we live in is. A hurricane and an insurance company with a cash flow problem started a chain reaction that almost brought down the country. Having a good healthy number of local farmers will make a huge difference if large corporations go bankrupt.
Well put, and an excellent point, I'll quote this on that other thread...
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