Corporate Profiteers Are Robbing America’s Farmers
A farmer was asked what he’d do if he won a million-dollar lottery. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d just keep farming ‘til the money runs out.”
Trying to make a living as a farmer is not for the
fainthearted. You have to take out high-interest loans from cold-eyed bankers
to put in a crop and buy supplies. Then you’re also at the mercy of everything
from bugs to monopolistic middlemen. And here’s a cruel twist: If you defy the
odds and produce a great crop, you lose money!
This is happening right now. With unusually-good weather
this year, corn and soybean harvests are expected to set records. But this
abundance creates a market glut, allowing middlemen to knock down prices paid
to farmers. A bushel of Illinois corn, for example, costs farmers $4.30 to
produce, but they’re only getting $3.70 for it.
Meanwhile, the cost of such basics as seed, fertilizer, and
tractors are skyrocketing. High costs coupled with low crop prices means that
farmers’ income is expected to drop by 25 percent this year.
You might call this good crop-bad price phenomenon “ironic.” But it’s deliberate – an inevitable product of America’s perverse agricultural policy that pushes farmers to over produce in order to keep commodity prices low for giant processors and retailers.
Little known fact: Our national “farm
policy” is not written by farmers but by corporate lobbyists, lawyers, and
economists – people who couldn’t run a watermelon stand if we gave them the
melons and had the highway patrol flag down the customers for them.
That has got to change. To join an effort to demand a farm
bill written by and for farmers, consumers, workers, and our environment, go
to: FarmAid.org/Take-Action.