Competitive pressures from abroad are squeezing fruit and vegetable growers, whose garlic, broccoli, lettuce, strawberries and other products are a mainstay of world kitchens. But the issue of whether the United States ought to broaden farm subsidies beyond commodity crops like corn and cotton, which have historically been protected, is a focus of intense debate.
“This is like the tectonic plates of farm policy shifting, because you have a completely new player coming in and demanding money,” said Kenneth Cook, president of Environmental Working Group, a research group in Washington that has been critical of farm subsidies, which are mandated by federal laws that date to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Although some farmers may be suffering, American consumers have been big beneficiaries of less expensive food imports. On the U.S. wholesale market, for example, Chinese garlic costs around half as much as garlic that is grown domestically.
As things stand, the federal farm subsidy program supplies more than $15 billion to growers of five crops: corn, cotton, rice, wheat and soybeans. Those crops are considered interchangeable commodities and are traded on world markets, unlike fruits and vegetables, which are called specialty crops because their taste and quality are viewed as highly variable.
Further, while commodity growers are sounding courteous about the fruit and vegetable farmers’ requests, they have historically enjoyed a near monopoly on federal subsidies.
Fruit and vegetable farmers have been gaining influence, though. The group’s combined cash receipts of $52.2 billion rival or exceed those of the five major commodity crops, which are expected to generate $52 billion this year.
Under the proposed bill, an overseas marketing program would rise 75 percent to $350 million a year. An existing specialty crop block-grant program would leap tenfold to $500 million a year. And the government would buy at least $400 million of fruits and vegetables annually for school lunch programs. While the total cost of the proposed bill has yet to be tallied, it will probably reach a few billion dollars, coalition officials said.
I have to smile over an article that describes the formation of a lobbying coalition — and never gives us the name of the coalition or the lobbyists. Then, that coalition tells us that taxpayers should subsidize this group of farmers; but, it won’t be called a subsidy.
Lemme see, subsidies, grants, WOO HOO! capitalism LIVES!! Oh oh oh wait, wait, that’s not capitalism , LONG LIVE LENIN!!!
and you thought communism was dead, shame on you.
When your policies create a situation where you have to subsidize the industries those policies have affected, there is probably something wrong with the policy. Our government pursuing free-trade should not be an end unto itself, but should be a means to provide benefit to Americans. It’s not about protectionism, it’s about not committing economic suicide. When you allow heavily subsidized foreign products into your market, you are creating your own problems. But instituting more of our own subsidies is not the answer.
I don’t think we should produce or manufacture anything here anymore. We can tear down the farms for more McMansions on a piece of land that used to not be big enough for a front yard.
We don’t need factories anymore then either. (Bonus Al Gore points for global warming rewards) With their reclaimed space we can build more strip malls and wal-marts for all that useless crap coming out of China.
I mean think about it if we no longer produce anything, we can lay around all the time. Our Asian and South American friends love to produce our products at such low prices and are offended if we do not purchase from them. We don’t want to be seen as insensitive or racist do we? (for more info on diversity see: http://www.naacp.org, et. al.)
If and when we disagree with any of these nations well don’t worry, they will continue to supply our weapons and ammunition for us during the war, and at reduced bulk price of course, since that is the honorable thing to do. Right?
…. hello? anybody there?
Now, let me see; Pretty much everything I can buy in the stores are already made in China. I even enjoy Chinese garlic on daily basis. Not to mention a weekly visit to the Chinese buffet. And, OMFG, I adore my partly Chinese wife 🙂
So do I worry over even more Chinese goods? Not really. I do however worry about a growing environmental threat from Chinese pollution though, but that’s another story.
If school kids could have more broccoli and other healthy foods due to the Chinese, I’m all for it. There is just too much cheesy pizza there as it is. Obese kids? Hm, I wonder why………
As it is, “99%” of what’s offered as food in stores is loaded with crap like high fructose corn syrup. And I believe that some “environmentalists” want our future cars to run on corn based ethanol also. At least the article gives a reason for this: Subsidies.
Cripes, it’s time to move on people. Instead of subsidies, we should put more emphasis on cleaning the environment. Globally. And eat more healthy food, regardless where it’s produced.
I don’t quite get it.
The US hits Canada with 5 billion dollars worth of softwood lumber tariffs for supposedly artificially and unfairly subsidizing its lumber exports via low harvesting (stumpage) fees. Yet the US does essentially the same through its farm subsidies?
Shouldn’t all this cheap foreign produce entering the US have a deflation effect upon the economy?
If the lesson is supposedly that the US must learn to better compete in the face of cheaper foreign products flooding the country and the rest of the world; how will it do so when the time comes that everything can be created offshore by workers willing to work for “$2” per day?
RBG
Decades ago, now, early demonstration projects showed how many “specialty” crops could be mechanically harvested. The subsidized crop agribusinesses went ahead with technology development — and use their subsidies to increase profits — at our expense.
The whiners turned their back on that avenue when it became clear they could maximize profits by doing exactly what they accuse the Chinese of doing — using cheap labor. They import the labor instead of the cheap foodstuffs.
With all the news of toxic leaks into Chinese rivers I wouldn’t want to buy produce imported from there.
Joey — you’ve never seen an American river on fire!
#7
“…toxic leaks into Chinese rivers…”
Yeah, that’s what I mean. But don’t we all have a part in this? As far as I know, we (the US) are also putting the toxic in the Chinese rivers. For instance, the other day I heard we are shipping our garbage CRT TVs in huge numbers to China for destruction. So, it’s our garbage also, polluting over there.
Makes it kinda hard to boycott then, doesn’t it?
It really blows my mind. Even my precious Japanese Wii is made in, yeah, correct; China.
I don’t know what to do, but I do know that subsidies won’t help in the long run………..
#9, I wouldn’t boycott Chinese produce as a political or social gesture. I’d do it for self preservation. I don’t want to ingest toxins, regardless of their origin or cause.
6-10,
I’m noticing it up here in Soviet Cannuckistan. Lot’s of Chinese produce showing up.. Also, produce from Turkmenistan of all places. I see it in two ways… You can’t ship illegal goods (drugs from Turkmenistan) without first loading up the cargo with, say, garlic. Second, you just can’t compete with forced chinese labour, and labourers that have no rights. Unfortunately, it’s up to you to buy the goods you see…
So I like to buy organic food for my daughter. I figure I’ll do my best to keep any pesticides and the like away from her early years. The organic store in my ‘hood sells green beans that are frozen and organic according to the USDA. Normally, I just buy fresh green beans locally grown. I saw USDA and figured the yanks aren’t THAT bad, and they’re beans, afterall. Disgusting. old and stringy and bitter. SO I looked closer at the packaging and they’re from China, certified by the USDA… what the fuck is THAT! Anyhoo, garbaged those.
And as an aside, when it comes to meat, I only buy from the farmers markets that use natural raised methods. I know the nuisances and am very careful about them.
here’s my butcher!
http://www.6degrees.ca/showcase_rowe.html
Eat local!
8.
American river on fire:
http://tinyurl.com/y6fqkk
(Okay… it’s not recent.)
RBG
Man, I wanna get paid for not growing corn.
I mean, I’m already not growing it, so I should be getting something for my contribution to decrease competition, right?
Back in the day when I worked for Diamondback, we lost our corporate lawyer because he realized he could make more money — storing rice for CA farmers who were paid to grow rice that shouldn’t be sold to anyone — to keep the price up for the rice farmers who were selling rice!
Laws written by other lawyers.
#13 sweeet sweet Brian Regan reference heehehehe, I also don’t grow corn.
Where’s my check?!?!?!
You guys kill me. First, if I had only this thread to go by, I’d have to assume that no one actually knows what communism really is… But subsidizing crops ain’t it.
And what makes people think farmers like not growing crops. It isn’t as if these guys are lighting their BBQ grills with the piles of hundred dollar bills the government airdrops over the farm to prevent corn growing.
Sure. Strip away the current system. We can all afford $4 for an ear of corn, $8 for a potato, and $15 for a pint of strawberries.
Are any of you guys farmers? Or are you just armchair wonks who believe you are pro-capitalism when in fact you are just parrots for a party line designed to benefit multinational corporations and squash working people?
Ok I’ll bite, tell me how paying farmers (tax payer money) to only bring to the “free” market a certain amount of product, and to destroy the rest is a capitalist concept.
There’s two objectives of agriculture subsidies: to keep supply off the market to keep prices artificially high, or to cause overproduction to keep prices artificially low. But that’s only half the story, since you also have other laws and policies that directly manipulate the prices of goods at the retail level; price floors on milk for example. And no, none of this has any relation to a free-market economy. But proponents of the subsidies would tell you they they not only help keep the farmers in business, but they also keep prices and supply stable in what would otherwise be a perfectly competitive commodity market where producers are constantly leaving and entering to maintain efficiency.
If anyone here really believed in global warming and the end of life as we know it, you would flat refuse to buy any produce or fruit that isn’t grown here in the U.S.
Every crate of Chinese Garlic, or Chilian oranges or Japenese rice has to be packed and shipped here….some by boat, but mostly by air. This raises the carbon cost of these **cheap** goods to 10 or 25 x the level of home grown products. You don’t have to buy from the multi-nationals…..you can inform your local grocers that you and the groups you belong to will only buy American grown and produced foods. You keep farming by Americans alive and provide jobs for millions of Americans at a living wage. Also for millions of illegals at a slightly less than living wage, but thats what they get for being illegal.
The point is, if you were willing to pay for what you get, then you could stop subsidies and enviromentally harmful imports of foods and produce. Of course that would mean weaning your wives, Mothers and Fathers off Wal-Mart and cost-plus type stores, and paying for higher priced goods.
See, it’s really easy…you can lick Global Warming, subsidies, and Wal-Mart all with the simple act of buying Caifornia oranges(if California still grew them)
#19
A quite-a-bit simplified solution, to say it least. But at least a suggestion.
Following the logic, closing down international trade completely would solve all the worlds problems, including global warming.
Ooh, maybe make just one exception: Gasoline. After all, we gotta keep driving our V8 SUVs, trucks and other thirsty vehicles 😉
if we continue to overpopulate the earth.. as we will
food needs to be grown close to where you eat it..
or we die..
has africa taught us nothing?
after all.. it all started there.. for us