A Summary Of Down On The Farm Bill

There is a thin line between the government giving out to much money, or not giving out enough. That is one of the biggest debates between U.S Production Agriculturalist, and congress. Of course the farmers are wanting as much money as they can get from the government, and the government is just wanting to give out just enough for farmers to get by on those year where things did not go quite as planned. One of the biggest questions being asked is, who is majority of the subsidy money going? Is going to the right people, and is everybody benefitting from who need the assistance? Some agriculturalist say that the majority of the money should be given to the corporation farmers who produce or grain, and there is others who say the small individual

Coming from a nation that was based around agriculture to what it has become now is shows in itself that there is a problem somewhere. Are smaller farmers falling into too much debt? Are large complex farmers who are receiving the majority of the government aid buying the majority of the land? These both could be factors which are both caused by the inefficiency of the Farm Bill. Accroding to Michael Grudwald the writer of Down on The Farm, “This was once an agrarian nation, but now there's a less than 1% chance that you're a farmer, and if you are, you're probably part time; the average farm family gets 82% of its income from nonfarm sources. We're not a people of the soil anymore…”(Grudwald). This statistic shows that the majority of farmers who have farmed there who life are now having to go out find jobs to have another money sources to keep their operations running. Farm subsidies are driving the value of land up so high that the you farmers do not have a chance to enter the market. Also farmers who do not own a lot of the land they farm, and pay cash rent on the majority are also going to take a huge hit. Later in that article Grundwald explains, “In reality, the top 10% of subsidized farmers collect nearly three-quarters of the subsidies, for an average of almost $35,000 per year”(Grundwald). That is an extremely large number compared to what the other 90% receive. Every other farmer enrolled in farm subsidy programs receive an average of $700 dollars. These are the small farmer, who live by strong morals and work as hard as they to keep what has been passed on for generation alive. Farm subsidies are intended to help farmers raise income, but they cannot do so when the majority of the farmers receiving the money make and average of $200,000 and have a net worth of 2 million (Reidl). These farmers are people who have