Farmers?
Here at the Outrage we take easy shots at all the predictable targets: lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians, and the vast network of vermin that make up modern society.
But we dedicate today’s thoughts to one of the sacred cows, so to speak, of American society – our friend, the farmer.
In addition to pigging out at the federal trough to the tune of billions of dollars in federal subsidies, most of which go to huge corporate farmers,
farmers are responsible for a huge amount of pollution. While Birkenstock wearing environmentalists get all wet and misty about saving open space, the fact is that about half of the pollutants swept into local waterways are the result of pesticides from farms. While real estate developers are strictly regulated, and often seen as the villains in wastewater pollution, they contribute far less pollution than the friendly local farmer.
Clueless actresses bemoan the loss of the family farm, but the fact is that we have far more farmers than necessary. In fact, farmers currently produce about 3,800 daily calories for every man, woman, and child in the United States – and even you, big boy, need only about 1,500-2,000. (And, looking at the accumulating folds around your waist, I might say even less in your case.)
While drug dealers get a bad rap for pushing often fairly harmless drugs, the friendly farmer is hoping you have another big plate of that subsidized chow, encouraging you to join the rapidly fattening American public on your way to clogged arteries and a massive stroke. And while your waist gets fatter, and your wallet thinner, you might ponder all the cultural benefits brought to you by Mr. Friendly Farmer – fashion forward overalls, saccharine country music, all that witty repartee. On the other hand, there are those farmers’ daughters…
The government has destroyed the once ‘family farm’ with all their regulations and low prices paid the farmer for his crops. Most dairy farms are receiving mid 1960 prices for producing milk. Storage of cow manure till spring, paying farmers to not plant certain crops, the list goes on and on. Government has driven the family farm out of business. The days of 40 – 50 milk cow farms is over. The summers jobs for students where the real learning takes place are gone.
As far as seeing actresses bemoaning the loss of the family farm, I must watch the wrong stations for I have yet to see one.
Rural life as I knew it is gone, replaced by a “hurry up and get yours” attitude.
“…1,500-2,000 calories. And, …I might say even less in your case.”
Now that was cruel! True, yes. But cruel.
Although I do agree that small farms are responsible for a large amount of pollution released into our environment via fetilizer run-off, the real crime is the selling out of America’s family farms to greedy corporate factory farms. At least today’s existing small farms are s-l-o-w-l-y adapting to environment-friendly practices like organic produce and humane methods of handling livestock. The fertilizer issue has been recognized by a growing number of family farmers who are trying to adapt safer practices. It is the corporate factory farms along with suburban sprawl that are killing off America’s once glorious agricultural society. While an increasing number of American families move into unecessarily large and poorly built “McMansions” located in poorly planned developments people are being pushed even more into the necessity for an automobile. At least in Europe the model is densly populated town centers with open fields and farmland at the outskirts. In America everyone seems to need several acres and a winding driveway with a three car garage and five bedrooms for a two-child family. As gasoline prices continue to rise and our food production contunues to be outsourced we will be sorry that we sold off and destroyed our valuable farmland.
Communities need to be forced into sensible planning for a sustainable future that relies on local productivity – NOT GLOBALIZATION!!!
I don’t find anything outrageous about people growing food for others to eat. If the concern is about environmental pollution, then the question that should be asked is whether legal restrictions on their use should be imposed. If so, then the second question to ask is: Is the issue important enough to you that you would be willing to pay more taxes to subsidize cleaner alternatives to the fertilizers that are currently being used? In the end, failure to regulate pollutants is a criticism of government–and, indirectly, of the voting public–not farmers. As for obesity, farmers are no more responsible for causing fat to happen than McDonald’s or Burger King is. The people who are responsible for overeating are the people who overeat, not farmers.
To read a really scathing criticism of farmers, see H.L.Mencken’s The Husbandman. I found it in Mencken’s American Scene, but the original appeared in Prejudices:Fourth Series, 1924. Samples: “No more grasping, selfish and dishonest mammal, indeed, is known to students of the Anthropoidea. When the going is good for him he robs the rest of us up to the extreme limit of our endurance; when the going is bad he comes up bawling for help out of the public till” “Why indeed are politicians so polite to him – before election, so romantically amorous? …. He must be promised something definite and valuable, to be paid to him alone, or he is off after some other montebank.” etc. This article is just as true today as when it was written, and perhaps more so.
I agree that the factory farms are a bane to society. They gobble up subsidies like I eat M&Ms, they pollute our land, air and water. The quality of the food they provide is poor, the quality of life of the animals they raise is horrific (see any of the documentaries on chicken battery-farms and mass pork producers). The people who own and run the factory farms are not farmers. They are business people with a Kenneth Lay attitude. Make a million, screw everyone you can and to heck with everyone else. The small family farm often doesn’t qualify for subsidies, especially if they are trying to go organic. The small family farm is where the supply of healthy food will come from – free of antibiotics, chemicals and terrorist contamination. But, the government in its traditional manner has its head up its Bush and pushed the NAIS down our throats without proper notification, etc. NAIS could well be the death of the small family farm which would feed us healthy foods and protect our environment. Once guesstimate is that adhering to the NAIS policy will cost 20 dollars per sheep, more that what you could sell it for. Small producers will have to tag every animal but the large factory farms won’t have to, they’ll get to process entire lots of animals under a single tag. So, while profits to the RFID tag industry and agri-giants will swell and make a few people very rich, they will make most of us very poor. Once the small family farms are gone, we will be stuck paying whatever prices the agri-giants demand of us. We’ll all pay more money for the food we eat, pay for the agri-giants environmental clean-up and pay increased health bills because of the damage their food will cause (can you say drug-resistant bacteria and 2 year olds going thru puberty?). I wonder who knows Bush and Cheney to get the NAIS piece of crap passed in such a disgustingly underhanded way? You really want to get outraged, google NAIS (National Animal Identification System) and read all about it!
Well, yes and no. You are right about the gubment trough at which the farmers feed… it is, like most things gubment, bottomless. It knows no bounds. Farmers take advantage of this fact, getting paid well not to grow things they had no intention of growing. Gubment buys surplus dried milk (and other things) from farmers to keep the price inflated, then sells it back to farmers during lean times for a buck a (22-ton) truck load to feed their cattle; then New Zealand complains that all this powdered milk is flooding their market!
All of this is extremely tacky, but don’t blame the farmer. Farmers are just people, and people are like electric power and hydraulic fluid, in that they follow the path of least resistance. We all do that because it is nature at work. Well, the gubment decides, in its infinite wisdom, that the free trade, open economy needs a little help, so it does something unbelievably stupid: it tries to fix it.
There is a natural way for goods and services to flow, and that is the people who have them reach an agreement with the people who need them, and everybody’s happy. Any attempt to “regulate”, tax, or otherwise interfere with these transactions is counter to nature, and cannot possibly benefit society as a whole.
Blaming the farmers is really unfair; they’re just taking an advantage offered them that should not exist. It exists because years ago some sleazeball politicians figured if he could shoehorn it into a bill it would win him the votes of all the farmers in his area. It continues to exist because the current batch of sleazeballs want to keep getting those votes.
So let’s be honest here: if the gubment offered you, say, twenty bucks a week to *not* mow your lawn, would you take it? I know I would. Heck, I don’t like mowing lawns anyway. If they started doing that folks without lawns would feel cheated, and rightly so. I, on the other hand, would be happy as a hog in slop. Do you think I might vote for the sleazebag who made my windfall possible? Dang skippy I would and so would most everyone I know who has a lawn to claim.
I just have a couple small comments to make. You mentioned the pollutants from farms consist of pesticides. I’m sure that is a component, but modern agricultural chemicals are much better than they used to be. They break down in the environment quite easily into harmless elements. By far the biggest polluter from farms is manure (poop happens). It is extremely damaging to the environment. Also, you referred to illegal drugs as “harmless”……?????? Shame on you.
I was reading an old outrage where you say that we have too many farmers since they produce about 3,800 calories for every person in the U.S. Have you city boys ever heard of EXPORTS?
I agree with you that farmers get too many federal subsidies, but use some real arguements.
Thanks,
Irv Barth
Lawrenceville, GA (Atlanta)
It has been said that, “It is better to let others think you’re an idiot that to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” The people of the U.S. have the best source of food of anyone in the world. If you think American farmers are subsidised you should look at the European farmers that the American farmers compete against in a world market. You truly have your head clear up your backside on this one. Beyond that perhaps you need to go hungry for a few years like alot of other people do around the world where they don’t have people around them like the American Farmers.