GET THOSE BOYS OFF THE FARM! - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 17

and dangerous chemicals and seeds is unfair and counterproductive. Subsidies are a symptom of a broken
system—not the cause.”
Longtime Iowan farm activist Brad Wilson says that progressives are “unknowingly siding with ag-
ribusiness” in the discussion over subsidies. He laments in his blog, “To merely remove subsidies would
drive the remaining diversified family farmers out of business.” He says that farmers can “help progress-
ives meet a wide range of policy goals, as well as key movement strategy goals in this time of budget
cutting and deregulation.” Wilson admonishes, “Don't destroy them! Enough already!” 25
The real question for the sustainable-food movement should be, How can we advocate effectively to
save family-owned farms? Working for the survival of midsize farms, which have a significant land base
and where farming is the primary occupation for the owner, is crucial for the transition to a sustainable
future. These family operations, barely hanging on even with a government payment, are vulnerable to be-
coming part of larger industrial farms or being transformed into yet another housing development or shop-
ping center.
Fred Kirschenmann, former director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, has advocated
for decades to save farms in the middle. He says: “Over 80 percent of farmland in the U.S. is managed
by farmers whose operations fall between small-scale direct markets and large, consolidated firms. These
farmers are increasingly left out of our food system. If present trends continue, these farms, together with
the social and environmental benefits they provide, will likely disappear in the next decade or two. The
'public good' that these farms have provided, in the form of land stewardship and community social capit-
al, will disappear with them.”
A close look at the statistics shows that midsize family farms are barely surviving and depend heavily
on subsidies. Eliminating subsidies without a major reform of the system will lead to an even more in-
dustrialized food system. Research by Dr. Daryll Ray shows that removing subsidies without instituting
policies to prevent oversupply would decrease farm income by another 25 percent to 30 percent, driving
more farmers out of business.
Regrettably, the data on subsidies used by the media and many organizations are based on deceptive
USDA statistics. The Environmental Working Group's farm subsidy database, widely used by the media
and activists to dramatize the problems with subsidies, relies on USDA's misleading estimate of 2.1 million
farms. A large pool of farms makes it appear that a smaller segment of farmers receives government sup-
port, whereas in reality 82 percent of midsize farmers depend on some support to stay afloat. Tim Wise
affirms: “It is false to suggest that the vast majority of full-time family farmers are excluded from federal
farm programs. A significant majority receive such benefits.” 26
Wise explains that the misinformation is based on the USDA's use of an inflated number of farms. In
its calculation of 2.1 million farms, the agency includes “residential/lifestyles” and “retirement” farms that
averaged $100,000 in off-farm income in 2009. While these 1.4 million farms make up roughly two thirds
of the entities categorized as farms, farming is not the primary occupation of their owners, and virtually all
income is from off-farm sources. A more accurate number of farms includes only those where the owner
is a full-time farmer—fewer than a million in the United States. 27
Most farmers can hardly be said to be living high on the hog, especially by the standards of Washington,
D.C., where the subsidies are routinely decried. The midsize farms—those grossing between $100,000 and
$250,000—averaged a net income of approximately $19,270 in 2009, including government payments.
Even those operations designated by the USDA as “large industrial farms” (making a gross income of
between $250,000 and $500,000 in 2009) netted only $52,000 on average, including $17,000 in govern-
ment payments. 28