A mountain of corn, destined to be ethanol
The Associated Press

A transport truck is buried under a mountain of corn headed for the ethanol production plant.

Featured Topic | Posted 18 weeks 4 days ago

With food prices soaring, should the U.S. keep subsidizing farmers?

Washington's love affair with corn-based ethanol may be cooling, but President Bush and Congress are heatedly clashing over who is to blame for delays in responding to skyrocketing gas and food prices. Bush on Tuesday defended ethanol production, saying "it's in our national interest that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us."

More and more legislators are blaming the rising use of corn as a biofuel as a key factor behind high food prices. Others want to freeze the federal mandate on biofuels production at current levels, reversing legislation passed just a few months ago that increases it through 2022. Still others are pushing to shift tax incentives away from corn-based to cellulose-based ethanol in the nearly completed farm bill. Bush favors shifting to cellulosic ethanol, too.

But should government subsidize the production of ethanol? Should government subsidize agriculture at all? Should fuel trump food, or does cheaper fuel also help keep food prices low?

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Ben likes: Big Corn and the ethanol hoax

Walter Williams/Townhall.com

Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The fact that the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter means that the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.

It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

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Joel likes: Making America fat and polluted, one subsidy at a time

Christopher D. Cook/Christian Science Monitor

If the current measure passes Americans will shell out billions of dollars for farm subsidies that wreak havoc on our land and diets. These payments irresponsibly promote the consumption of cheap fatty foods, the depletion of soil and air through overuse of pesticides, and destructive farming practices.

Like farm bills past, this one also advances the removal of small farms, eroding the spirit and finances of rural communities across the U.S.

Instead of upholding these mega-farm subsidies, let's invest the public's money in sustainable growing practices, organic foods, and small and mid-sized farms that form the bedrock -- both economically and socially -- of communities throughout America's heartland.

Hardly a romantic nod to the past, such an overhaul is a practical investment in the future. As global warming heats up, we can't afford a system that guzzles 100 billion gallons of oil each year in pesticides and the long-distance transit of packaged foods. 

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Thoughts

Small Farms need help

Submitted on June 21st, 2008 by snkslyer

The person who wrote before me is exactly right, organic farming has a much lower yield per acre. Industrial farms where herbicides and pesticides are used are not as harmful to the land as people make it out to be. Farming used to be the backbone of this nation but is slowly deteriorating, which is a shame. Agricultural subsidies are necessarry for our domestic farms to be able to compete with other countries where the labor fields are severely underpaid and not entitled to luxuries like workman's compensation. This coupled with other expenses like rising property taxes, crop insurance and diseases that affect the crops are mainly what cause expensive ag products. Without farm subsidies you can expect to pay a lot more for food.
Most people in agriculture are not wealthy people, and as soon as they start to get their feet under them and make a little extra money everyone wants to attack them. forgetting about the years when they were dirt poor, and everyone else was earning a nice living. no, you're right we need blame the farmers for expensive groceries and even better take away their subsidies so food gets even more expensive, smart, real smart. Farmers deserve to make a living too.

Support small and mid-sized farms puhleeze...

Submitted on May 3rd, 2008 by Anonymous

100 years ago, over half of the nation's population was engaged in farming. Today, maybe 2% is. Along the way, tens of thousands of small farms were lost.

Does anybody think that's a trend we want to reverse? Do we want large portions of the population to switch from, say, engineering and computer programming back to farming? Would the country be better off?

Large-scale farming has allowed the US economy to grow enormously by freeing people up to do other things.

"Organic" farming, similarly sounds great, until you realize that the yield per-acre is much lower and, as a result, it produces much more pollution and run-off than modern farming techniques.

Government involvement means......

Submitted on May 1st, 2008 by Uriah

Government involvement means problems, PERIOD.

They shouldn't be allowed to choose what to subsidize. What if they chose the wrong thing?

Let the free markets decide.

Anytime Washington gets involved you can rest assured something will get off balance.

No need to subsidize small farms either, maybe they would be able to compete with Big Agribusiness if the playing field was more level, and by taking away subsidies you do just that.

Who makes the rules on how it is determined what is a big and a small farm? It just won't work.

Let the farmers farm their land and what they think will bring them the biggest profits, NOT what will bring them tax payers dollars!

Uriah

SUBSIDIZE only SMALL FARMS

Submitted on April 30th, 2008 by Anonymous

We need not subsidize the gentlemen rich farmers like the Rockefellers in this country who produce only the minimum required to get their tax breaks as well.
I have seen small farms go under just because they had a bad season. They deserve to be kept in business because we need them.
More and more of our food is imported and that's not a good thing.