Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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“The FarmBill will strengthen the farmeconomy over the long term. It helps
farmer independence, and preserves the farm way of life for generations.
It helps America's farmers, and therefore it helps America” (USDA 2002).
Certainly, this sounds good. Unfortunately, the statement is false. The reality
is that the Farm Bill continues to subsidize farmers for increasing their crop
yields; LDPs are figured as the quantity of a commodity producedmultiplied
by the payment rate. The more you grow, the higher the subsidy. This
upholds the high yield mentality of the treadmill of production that forces
farmers to get bigger just to stay in business. By promoting megafarms and
forcing out small farmers, the rural economy is weakened and the rural
ecosystems are compromised. This will have devastating effects on rural
communities and landscapes, which hurts America.
Half of farm income comes from the federal government ($23 billion in
2001). Our tax dollars provide half the income earned by American farmers.
Incredible as that may seem, it's infuriating to note that most of this (61
percent) goes to the wealthiest 10 percent of farms, while smaller farms are
barely eking out a living or may actually realize net losses (Williams-Derry
and Cook 2000). Our taxes support farmers so they can sell their crops
cheaply to agribusiness corporations that sell the food back to me and you,
reaping huge profits in the process, mostly at the expense of family farms.
Why are we so bamboozled? Because the agribusiness corporations and their
hundreds of lobbyists have paid millions of dollars to our congressmen to
convince them that this agricultural system “works” - all in the name of
saving family farmers!
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ncentration and Inequality in Agriculture
The most comprehensive information on the issue of agribusiness consol-
idation and inequity in agriculture has been gathered by Bill Heffernan
and Mary Hendrickson (both in the Department of Rural Sociology at the
University of Missouri) for reports to the National Farmers Union. These
are available online at www.nfu.org. Incredibly high market concentration
exists for many agricultural commodities: 81 percent of beef packing, 81
percent of corn exports, 80 percent of soybean crushing, 65 percent of
soybean exports, and 61 percent of flour milling are controlled by the top
four firms in each category (Hendrickson and Heffernan 2002a). This type
of concentration is referred to as horizontal concentration; that is, one level
of the food system is under control, or a few companies control from here
to the horizon - as far as one can see! The second type of concentration is
vertical control - when one corporation is a major player in all the levels
