Posted by paul on November 08, 2012 at 08:25:29 from (66.44.133.112):
In Reply to: Re: Farm subsidies posted by jackinok on November 08, 2012 at 07:59:39:
Back a few dacades ago, coming out of the 60s into the 70s and part of the 80s, the govt had a really odd farm program.
We farmers were growing more gain than needed. The govt came up with the idea of buying and storing the surplus - it would be good to store it for a bad year, and keep food supplies plentiful all the time.
Happened to have some good years, and farmers grew a lot of extra grain, and the govt kept buying it, and soon there was a _lot_ of extra grain sitting around.
Buyers knew the grain was sitting there, so they didn't have to pay much for grain - plenty sitting around. So gain prices sunk very, very low.
This was a bad cycle, as prices got lower, the govt ended up buying and storing more, which made prices lower, and so on.
They tried to find a way out of this poor program, and eventually had a set-aside program for a few years. They did pay farmers to not harvest crops from a certain percentage of their land. It was the govt's attempt to control supplies of grain sitting around. Hou had to plant an exact amount of acres of each crop, and a small % was left in cover crops, not harvested.
No one was very happy with the govt programs back then, not well thought out at all.
The drought of 1988 came along and finally used up the extra grain the govt had sitting around, and the govt changed the policies to much better ones, supporting wildlife management and putting price supports on crops with the LDP, Counter-Cyclical, and now insurance programs.
Most people wildly complaining about govt paying farmers not to plant crops are stuck in the 1970's, and don't realize things have changed since then.
What we have now is a lot better. Could certainly be better than it is, but is a lot better than it used to be. Would be great if there was no need for these programs, but most of it only kicks in when grain prices dive into the toilet - much like food stamps, minimum wage, and unemployment programs kick in harder in bad times for working folk.
But to your point - there was a time back many decades ago the govt did pay farmers not to harvest a small % of their land.
That is where most people get their mis-informed ideas that this is still happening.
You know why farmer's caps have such a rounded bill???? Because they spend so much time looking in their mailboxes for the govt check. ;)
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