What is your opinon on corporate/large farming operations?

[QUOTE=rambler;5502372]this is totally true. wind is a huge thing up here. you are either for it or against it, and for dumb reasons. The wind arguement splits communities in half here.
You see all these cash croppers fighting over wether or not to allow windmills in but they are fine with all the crop payouts from the taxpayer. All they care about is the govt money handout. you get a check to have a turbine on your land here, but then the local govt made the setbacks so much that only those farmers with the largest single plots of land could have one.

then you get all the small people arguing over trivial bs, like flicker and vibration, and how it will screw the local bat population. Turbines are a joke. 1/3 is paid by artificial subsidies and one doesnt put out enough power to make the financial trade off worth it. If the subsidies for that would stop, I bet wind turbines would be a dead issue.

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My late husband who used to dairy farm in Iowa and Wisconsin put it like this.
Take care of the farmer and you take care of the nation.
Most of the discussion here has been grain and milk. But do some deep thinking/research. Look at your self in the mirror, what are you wearing? where are you? Everything you have own was made by a farmer somewhere. Whether you are wearing natural fiber or synthetic it came from the land one way or another or maybe even the sea. Your house was made from a farming/rural operation even if it was tree farming or the harvest of rocks for concrete.
If we think only of the way we would do things and criticize others we are biting the hand that feeds us.
Martin is right, farmers bear the brunt of it and yet they are expected to feed the nation and pay the price. It seems as if everybody want the farmer to be poor. Why can not the farmer enjoy his labor and have a vacation now and then? Dairy farmers milk twice or three times a day 365 days of the year. It is a relentless business. Cows to feed, manure to be scraped and spread , barns/equipment to be washed .etc... Grain farmers have only so many days to get the crop planted, by no later than certain day. They invest incredible amounts of money in seed and fertilizer, land payments, rent, equipment payments and repair. A tornado, flood, hail or drought can destroy a crop in a short time.
Yes there are crooks in farming - is there any business/operation where there isn't? There are those that take advantage of the government - I saw it with my own eyes, heard the gut boast about it - getting paid for not farming land that could never be farmed or even grazed. It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole basket- don't forget that!! So it will be the farmers/businessmen that are like that that will be remembered by the do-gooders.
Big ships go out to bring in the fish commercially because there is no way that enough could be provided by hook and line.
I hope the goal of those on here criticizing big farming do no have the goal to go back to the 1920's......I think you would get tired of it very quickly. There is too much of this mentality "let the farmer go broke I will buy mine from the grocery store"
My late DH also said we should never criticize the rich as they are the ones who build the factories that supply our needs, loan the money we need etc....

Very true.
But most of the time, that's in the form of loans, specific grants, etc. I have no complaint about those.


It's the long term support system that I object too. With no limits!
If windfarms are going to be subsized forever, I will certainly complain about that too.
Anyone with any sort of fiscal responsibility would!

I repeat, you should not be able to make a few million dollars off US tax money simply because you're fortunate enough to own a few thousand acres of farm ground.
Do you disagree?

Got it. "Welfare" is for individuals, "subsidies" are for businesses.
PoTAYto, PoTAHto. lol

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Interesting that you're using socialism to support why we should continue this...



I will also repeat:
There are mutliple ag. sectors that are NOT subsidized.
At least not in the unlimited way that grain and dairy farmers are.


How is it that WE can continue to make a living without those "necessary" subsidies??

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

BTW, I'll also repeat:

I really have no complaint about welfare (either the personal OR corporate versions). If people need help, they need help.
My only complaint is when it becomes an unending way of life.

There should always be a limit, pure and simple.



(Also, I always find it extremely ironic that people will tell you that the government handout that THEY get is somehow more valid than the government handout that OTHER people get it)

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

My grampa always said its downright rude to complain about farmers while yer mouth is full.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Bottom line. If there were no subsities food prices would be high like other places in the world with people going hungry. I farmed 1000-1500 acres in the 70 and 80's. Peppermint and wheat and never took a dollar of government money, totaly independent, no bank loan. I was not fortunate to own thousands of acres. I earned every sq. ft that I farmed either owned or rented. Peppermint had it's own way of limiting production. Wheat had limitations IF you were in the program. I was not, if wheat was high I planted wheat, if peppermint was high I planted peppermint. I gambled and got to where I got it right most of the time. If anyone here thinks it is easy, you go do it, buy the land and gamble everyday. I don't like the programs BUT it is way bigger than anyone Not farming will ever be able to get THEIR head around....James


Quote[ You shouldn't be able to make a few million off US tax dollars just because you're fortunate enough to own a few thousand acres of corn fields]Quote

What an insult.....Just because you don't? I don't like BIG farming either but that mentality is why this country is in the mess it is. Liberals want to downgrade profit to a bad thing. Make all big buisness a 4 letter word, share the wealth. Well then get out there and earn it, not sit around and complain because you haven't "made it big"....James

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with making a profit. For that matter, there's nothing wrong with subsidies. Just put a limit on them.


And btw, "share the wealth" is precisely why subsidies exist! lol
Like I said, I've always found it ironic that people will complain about someone else's handout while somehow rationalizing their own.

So far as the "need" in order to keep food prices down, I would recommend some research on this.
Start with New Zealand.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Good point, Erin. New Zealand's farmers had the strength to endure without subsidies, although I have no idea of the extent of the lack of government involvement in Ag.

Jim

Somehow you have a hangup on the amount that some people can receive. If there is a subsidy which pays $10 per acre and I have 20 eligible acres, I would expect to receive $200. If one of my neighbors had 200 such acres, he should expect to receive $2,000. If one of our mutual neighbors had 1,000 such acres, I do not think that either of us should have reason to complain if he received $20,000. If an acreage limit were instituted in order to receive subsidies, ownership would merely be distributed on paper to different family members or partners without losing a single square foot of land.

Martin

[QUOTE=lonelyfarmgirl;5502652]If the tax incentives for oil and gas exploration were ended, you would instantly fall in love with wind turbines. On an equal playing field, the energy from the sun will always, in the end, win.

The farmers are living on scraps and are forced to farm "fencerow to fencerow" because of the current policies of the Federal Government at the behest of "major corporate interests".

The farmer, in defending the current system, is undermining his own position.

Uh....yeah. That's why I believe in limits. (I thought I was being VERY clear on this ).
No one should spend their entire life on food stamps, nor should they be able to spend a lifetime, running a business, with the guarantee of American tax dollars to keep them making money.

So far as your suggested fraud, yeah, people already do that to skirt different rules.
There are immoral people milking every welfare program out there.

I'm not seeing where that's a good reason to leave things as they are, though.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

The demands of “I want more, faster, and cheaper” aren't sustainable, and we're starting to reap the benefits.

Seriously one of two things will happen, we will not be able to produce enough grain for the populous, or we will not be able to populate faster than we can produce grain.

Seriously farms that are 5,000 acres today, what will they be in 25 years? Will they have to double the acreage to "break even"? Like a previous poster said, it's a million dollar operation with 950,000 dollars of expenditures.

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I see a very dark cloud on America's horizon,
and that cloud is coming from Rome.
- Abraham Lincoln

a really.
I just passed one of those mega farms and they had 5 More HUGE buildings going up to house their cattle in. Millions 10's of millions in dollars~~~
And Another one in the Eastern part of WI. is expanding to doubling its size from 4,000- to 8,000 cows.
At a Cost of 35 Million~!!!
It does NOT come without COST to that farm, and will add over 35 workers also.
So they HAVE to milk as many cows as possible and GROW crops as cheaply as they can, so they CAN MAKE at least SOME profit in the end.
And will now that corn prices are up and I just read a new report even if here in WI the farmers are enjoying a Huge Corn crop that does not make up for the lose in other states, so prices will be going UP.
So much for saying growing crops is driving be cheap food prices it is not.
Food as well as FAST FOOD has,,, and will keep going UP in price~~~
When was the last time a person had a 1/4 pounder.
Gone are the days you could go and get 5 burgers for a dollar.
More like over 3 bucks for One Burger
A 1/4 pounder, small order of fries, and a small drink over 6 BUCKS. Who in the world can say that is Cheap Food is beyond me.

Seriously, they aint making much more farmland in this country. A small amount is being taken out of brush and put into production in some of the western states.... IF and where there is water available but overall, that 5000 acre farm will still be a 5000 acre farm 25 years from now. It may be being run by a neighbor who also had 5000 acres and now has 10000 acres but unless someone comes up with a land stretcher... there is only so many farmable acres in this country, and nearly all of them are in production now.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Yep, its costing more to eat all the time. I grilled a couple of Tbones for our supper tonite, and sliced up 4 nice sized taters for fries, the steaks cost me 6 bucks for both, but you gotta admit Tbones is lots better than a couple of quarter pounders. Ok, the drinks cost us a bit too, maybe another buck, but one does not eat Tbones without some decent bourbon to warsh em down with.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

This reminds me of what some people were advocating 5 or 6 years ago during the anti-ethanol nonsense. They were saying to not use corn but use switch grass or something else to make it. Only problem was that they could never say where the new acreage was going to come from!

As long as some people apparently are living in a dream world, may as well dream big. Manitowoc County is 60% water. If the lakes and river were filled in, that would add 902 square miles of land. None of the lakes are all that deep and there should be enough fill available. None of the 250,000 or so acres of farmland would not have to be used for fill. That would instead come from the remaining third of the land.

Martin

Farming COSTS are also at a nearly four decade high.

You're confusing "income" with "profits"

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And when the wind stopped blowing you'd be in the cold and dark

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