Small farms are hit hardest
Subsidies of any kind give the market system a bad rap. With federal farm programs, supply and demand don't decide prices, farm subsidies do. And farmers don't really know what they are worth in purchasing power.
Farm subsidies are negative and are used to exert power, influence, and control over farmers. Small farms are hit hardest.
There is a lot of money in farming, but most of it goes to chemical companies, equipment manufacturers, and other agri-businesses. Are farmers so gullible as to let these entities dictate their well-being?
Subsidies encourage farmers to be consumptive, spending money on things they otherwise would not buy. Subsidies reward a lack of management and detract from a farmer's sense of self-sufficiency.
Subsidies increase the price of land, rent, machinery, and chemicals and give governments an excuse to raise property taxes.
Surprisingly, among those receiving subsidies are large corporations which have gotten involved in farming. Large corporate farms rake in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in subsidies each year. Without subsidies, would they continue to exist? Probably not.
One entity, Missouri Delta Farms, received $14,987,438 from 1995-2000. Tyler Farms received even more — $23,810,102. Imagine that!
In the end, it's the small, independent farmer who has to continue to live with low prices and ever-increasing costs with a few crumbs thrown out to him by the government to make him think he's being helped.
Farmers don't realize the potential they have to control their destiny economically, not by group organization but by sticking to their principles of self-sufficiency.
Farmers must see themselves as businessmen with the independence and individualism to determine their own future.
Rowena Plett
