Sad state of US AG

[Hoop]

I've been to several winter meeting over the last two months and have some thoughts from what I've seen and heard; a couple meetings were mainly crop farmers and some were mainly beef producers. At the crop meetings, I'm 55, I was one of the younger people in the room. One meeting had 130 people, there was 10-15 younger than me. At the beef meetings I was in the middle. At the crop meetings, 25% of the time was taken up by people explaining or talking about crop insurance programs or FSA programs and farm bill payments, forms that need to be filed, etc, BS, BS.
You can't get this payment if you don't file that form you need to be in this program for that payment etc. Government payments to farmers has become their cocaine, they don't know how to function without. And crop ins has turned into a huge scam. We have a neighbor with a couple 100 ac of corn, ended up with bad mold, poor crop, he ended up stalk chopping and disc it under, he got paid for 152 bu corn, our area only ave 125, and he is personally lucky when he gets over 110. No drying costs, no harvest costs the best year he's ever had, he says" Hope next years just like this."

What is wrong with this picture? I honestly think the US should go the route of New Zealand and do away with ALL subsidize; extention as support and thats it.. Maybe that way we would know what the true value of a bu of corn is.

Sorry for the rant but the farm welfare system is insane.

PS the canadian national anthem has got to be the best one in the world..

[jkvikefan]

I have a buddy that prays for hail every year.

[cowhunter]

Tell me about it. Some that work the system got free hay this year. If I can't aford to feed mine, they will damn sure be sold. Not all but most of these farmers here, are up to there elbows in this crap and its a shame. Looks like a welfare line to me.

[balestabber]

i wish i could see ahead 10 or 20 years.as i have seen alot looking back and learned alot.used to be u needed a large garden with lots of livestock,now its a good book-keeper,a lawyer,and a crooked tax man.the FUTURE will tell i'm afraid.

[Ben H]

You're exactly right, read the article I posted over in Political Bull on this topic. http://ranchers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42848

I'm 30 years old and getting into farming, actually I grew up with it, but now I own the cows. As a grassfed beef producer, I'm competing with beef that is fed subsidized corn. I'll admit you could probably call me a little guilty myself. With the advice of my advisor from school, "don't leave money on the table." I participate in EQIP funding, I don't do any of the CRP, Planned Grazing etc., but I have done a lot of fencing and some water development. I see this as investment in the infrastructure. If the government is going to be spending something on Ag, I think this is a much better use of the money. True subsidies only create over production. The other thing is, we first volunteered to become involved with NRCS/EQIP because we were afraid of future regulations, we wanted to get funding to be in compliance with what regulations we thought may be in our future while there was funding available.

[balestabber]

there might be another lesson here.i guess i'll take the past and the future and apply to today.Philippians 3:13 then Philipians 3:8--helps me!!

[Trinity man]

I see many ranchers over here getting loans from the government to buy cows at sale barn all the time. The auctioneer at one sale is always kidding when they are selling Reg. cattle saying "You can take these papers to the bank and barrow money on them". I used to think he was just kidding about that until I started hearing people talking about doing that. I have a good friend that has barrow thousands of dollars to lease land when he has land that he don't even do anything with. Most of the cattle he has are so inbred that he loosing most of the calves and he don't know why. I asked him one day how long have you had theses bulls with those cows and he said o about 9 years. He just keeps the heifers out there for their daddy to bred back to. He will never be able to pay the money back with the prices he gets for the cattle. It seems if it wasn't for these loans most of the younger rancher would know to run a rancher.

My father has never barrow one dime to run the ranch. That’s the way I'm going to run it. Make the cattle and the ranch run itself with cattle, pecans, hay, and some hunting leases. If these don’t run it then I don't need to be in the ranching business.

[Ben H]

I recently sent a letter to Stockman Grass Farmer about how I would like to see more articles speaking against subsidies. I think we would see more grazing and SGF would obviously benefit from that. I just finished Al's Obs. He did a very good job of approaching the issue, not sure if it had anything to do with my email I sent them, I didn't see any letter from readers printed this month.

[scout]

the govt can't give to the people unless it takes it from the people. the govt knows that people with full bellys are happy people . these animal rights people attacking are food system don't reliaze when your full you have lots of problems when your hungry you only have one problem.

[Hereford76]

try doing a search on your local county top 10 recipients of farm program payments...

Total USDA - Subsidies by state, 1995-2006
Rank State Total USDA - Subsidies
1995-2006 Pct of
Total Running
Percentage
1 Texas $16,229,168,781 9.1% 9.1%
2 Iowa $15,990,898,128 9.0% 18.1%
3 Illinois $13,426,108,173 7.6% 25.7%
4 Nebraska $10,432,876,377 5.9% 31.6%
5 Minnesota $10,269,255,833 5.8% 37.4%
6 Kansas $9,670,243,949 5.4% 42.8%
7 Arkansas $7,668,462,059 4.3% 47.1%
8 North Dakota $7,481,309,005 4.2% 51.3%
9 Indiana $6,600,636,433 3.7% 55.1%
10 California $6,235,138,230 3.5% 58.6%
11 Missouri $6,160,005,410 3.5% 62.0%
12 South Dakota $5,960,563,365 3.4% 65.4%
13 Mississippi $5,615,796,229 3.2% 68.6%
14 Ohio $4,816,100,079 2.7% 71.3%
15 Wisconsin $4,313,477,588 2.4% 73.7%
16 Georgia $4,044,624,314 2.3% 76.0%
17 Montana $3,972,132,303 2.2% 78.2%
18 Louisiana $3,707,336,026 2.1% 80.3%
19 Oklahoma $3,673,330,210 2.1% 82.4%
20 Colorado $3,139,091,676 1.8% 84.1%
21 North Carolina $3,027,473,148 1.7% 85.8%
22 Michigan $2,977,340,432 1.7% 87.5%
23 Washington $2,669,695,980 1.5% 89.0%
24 Tennessee $2,236,672,534 1.3% 90.3%
25 Kentucky $2,124,829,461 1.2% 91.5%
26 Alabama $1,997,009,802 1.1% 92.6%
27 Idaho $1,976,796,720 1.1% 93.7%
28 Florida $1,264,529,777 0.7% 94.4%
29 New York $1,224,672,559 0.7% 95.1%
30 Pennsylvania $1,155,270,674 0.7% 95.8%
31 Virginia $1,121,264,109 0.6% 96.4%
32 Oregon $1,056,651,301 0.6% 97.0%
33 South Carolina $1,052,299,678 0.6% 97.6%
34 Arizona $1,013,548,968 0.6% 98.2%
35 New Mexico $884,587,459 0.5% 98.6%
36 Maryland $623,800,838 0.4% 99.0%
37 Wyoming $405,362,649 0.2% 99.2%
38 Utah $400,441,037 0.2% 99.5%
39 Vermont $175,527,386 0.1% 99.6%
40 Delaware $173,911,241 0.1% 99.7%
41 Maine $120,153,896 0.1% 99.7%
42 New Jersey $116,861,383 0.1% 99.8%
43 West Virginia $104,128,140 0.1% 99.8%
44 Massachusetts $71,215,954 0.0% 99.9%
45 Nevada $64,497,788 0.0% 99.9%
46 Connecticut $62,768,315 0.0% 100.0%
47 New Hampshire $32,293,010 0.0% 100.0%
48 Alaska $25,495,289 0.0% 100.0%
49 Hawaii $17,432,452 0.0% 100.0%
50 Rhode Island $6,256,825 0.0% 100.0%

[nortexsook]

>>1 Texas $16,229,168,781 9.1% 9.1% <<

Rice farmers in SE Texas get HUGE subsidies.

Wheat farmer get a fair bit as well.

We need to just end the subsidies COLD TURKEY.

Would be the best thing that could happen for Ag and for America!

[Big Muddy rancher]

Does that read that Montana got almost 4 billion?