That is a bold statement! I would be glad to stand with you in this. I don't own a farm, I do work for several small farmers in my area. They are caught in the classic catch-22, government agencies treat them like they are millionaires with bottomless pockets. Some have broken free and operate without subsidies. Others have been driven to bankruptcy and now their acerage is caught up in legal limbo, no one allowed to work it, no one allowed to develop it either. Here in Pa. the Game Commission is trying to dictate what farmers are allowed to do now. And the EPA is once again changing the rules that are applied to small farmers while large operations are driven farther into the red every year. Small farmers were the backbone of American agriculture, now the attack against them is coming full circle. We all will pay the price for this, we already are paying it.

I own a small farm in Indiana. I receive rent on it. The rent payments undoubtedly are propped up by ag subsidies.

There is no reason why I, or the farmer who rents the property from me, should get these ag subsidies. They should be abolished. They help my bottom line -- but they make our food more expensive in the grocery store than it otherwise would be, and increase our tax payments. They also support some thousands of bureaucrats whose job it is to administer these subsidies. I get a newsletter from the local office of these bureaucrats once in a while, advising me about the different "programs" I can join to get on the federal dole.

The whole idea behind ag subsidies is to "save the family farm", as if there were numerous 400 acre smallholders left, each with chickens in the barnyard. What a quaint, romantic, 19th Century notion. This kind of farm doesn't exist anymore. The farmers who are in this for real are full-blown businesses, having millions in assets and who farm thousands of acres. They receive most of the ag subsidy money. They take their dent field corn and soybeans, and sell it on exchanges to other agribusinesses, who turn it into pork in large confined animal feeding facilities, or shake mix, or ethanol (another stupid subsidy).

The federal government should not be preferentially giving aid to this business, nor any other. If it wanted to aid business in general, it should be seeking to reduce federal taxation, spending and regulation. I think we could save 90 billion dollars by getting rid of all ag subsidy programs. That's quite a dent in the federal deficit.

I own a small farm in Indiana. I receive rent on it. The rent payments undoubtedly are propped up by ag subsidies.

There is no reason why I, or the farmer who rents the property from me, should get these ag subsidies. They should be abolished. They help my bottom line -- but they make our food more expensive in the grocery store than it otherwise would be, and increase our tax payments. They also support some thousands of bureaucrats whose job it is to administer these subsidies. I get a newsletter from the local office of these bureaucrats once in a while, advising me about the different "programs" I can join to get on the federal dole.

The whole idea behind ag subsidies is to "save the family farm", as if there were numerous 400 acre smallholders left, each with chickens in the barnyard. What a quaint, romantic, 19th Century notion. This kind of farm doesn't exist anymore. The farmers who are in this for real are full-blown businesses, having millions in assets and who farm thousands of acres. They receive most of the ag subsidy money. They take their dent field corn and soybeans, and sell it on exchanges to other agribusinesses, who turn it into pork in large confined animal feeding facilities, or shake mix, or ethanol (another stupid subsidy).

The federal government should not be preferentially giving aid to this business, nor any other. If it wanted to aid business in general, it should be seeking to reduce federal taxation, spending and regulation. I think we could save 90 billion dollars by getting rid of all ag subsidy programs. That's quite a dent in the federal deficit.

I grew up on a large farm and we joined a lot of the government programs. It was money on the table so why not take it? We'd still be successful without it, but the programs did help. The reasoing behind some of these programs was to help our farmers compete with Europe and South America where the crops are either heavily subsidized or cheaper. Also we have to remember when the government says "Cuts" they aren't really cutting anything they are just not expanding a program as much as they'd like. Odds are I bet we don't really see a big change from the amount of money dished out the past few years. Personally I think the government should stop subsidies to most businesses starting with Agritcluture and the Airlines. I'd be curious to see what would happen if they stopped relying on the government to prop them up.

You get the Euros and the South Americans, including the Mexicans to cut their farm subsidies, and I'm with you.

Or, put import tariffs on ag commodities designed to counter the foreign farm subsidies. That would be fine, also.

Until then, F' bloody off. You Libertarian-types all want to swagger about acting like it's a fair fight. It's not, and it's not going to be you doing any of the fighting anyway.

One of the things I find most objectionable about agricultural subsidies is their exceptionalism. For example, in the UK about three times as many people are employed in the restaurant and hotel business as are in agriculture. Yet we don't see the Licensed Victuallers' Association getting billions of pounds' worth of taxpayers dough every year. The grotesqueries of the CAP and various farm bills should really be exposed by pointing out how few people actually benefit and how many are paying higher prices (I've seen it written that the CAP costs the average British family about £1,500 a year). The public also needs to be educated about the disposition of these funds, with the bulk of them going to large agri-business concerns which are a far cry from the yeoman farmer of popular imagination.

Whatever tactics are used, reformers are going to have one hell of a fight on their hands. It's the classic Friedmannian formulation of concentrated benefits vs. diffuse costs at work here. There's also the baleful influence of the supposed need to make any move towards tariff/subsidy reduction and elimination in lockstep with other WTO 'partners', as Paul above seems to think. Any competent economist could tell you that unilateral tariff reduction is beneficial - in fact it generally puts the reducing country at an advantage that would be considered 'unfair'. As a non-farmer, I generally couldn't give a stuff about who, exactly, is providing me with fresh lettuce in January. I just want it to be available at the best price. This argument extends everywhere: we're all consumers of vastly more products and services than we are producers. If Mexico wants to use its citizens' money to allow me to buy cheaper produce then more power to their elbow. If China wants to dump low-cost textiles onto the market then fine. Who the hell wants to work in a textile mill anyway?

URL: Poorer countries should take advantage of agricultural subsidies

I support removing agricultural subisides, not from the point of view
of fairer international trade but because subsidies are not fair to the
taxpayers in the developed countries.

In the same vein, developing countries should remove import duties
because they are unfair to the consumers in their own countries.

I have argued that instead of protesting, developing countries should
remove trade barriers and import tarriffs that they have erected to
"protect" domestic farmers.

Let's consider for a moment what the FY2006 budget actually proposes to do.

First, it would decrease the maximum payment, including payment from marketing loans, from $360,000 to $250,000. Second, it would eliminate the so-called "three farm rule," under which farmers can receive up to the maximum total of payments on one farm and up to half the maximum on each of two additional farms incorporated seperately. Third, it would cuts all direct payments to farmers by 5%, across the board.

There are some additional provisions pertaining to crops that can be placed in the marketing loan program, a renewal of a marketing assessment on sugar producers and a couple of other things. Let me just point out a couple of things about this group of proposals:

First: They do not spring from the head of President Bush, or even from OMB. Tightening up on payment limitations is an idea with (discreet) advocates within USDA, and was a cause Sen. Grassley pushed in 2002 during the last farm bill debate. Interestingly, they are also favored by environmental groups, one of which -- an organization called the Environmental Working Group -- ruffled a lot of farm feathers with two years ago with an Internet database detailing just how many farm subsidy dollars went to a very small number of farmers. As soon as budget details started getting leaked to the press, EWG spokesman Ken Cook started to be quoted widely in print and broadcast media supporting the Bush ag budget. I doubt this was coincidental.

Second: Payment limitations impact most heavily of farmers of two crops, cotton and rice. Perhaps coincidentally, and perhaps not, the cotton and rice programs are regarded as two of the most seriously trade-distorting subsidy programs we have (this also explains why Sen. Grassley, from rice and cotton-less Iowa, has been comfortable with payment limitations). A political plus is that cotton and rice program defenders include many Democrats, for example the Arkansas and California Senate delegations. A political minus -- a big one -- is that they also include the new Chairman of Senate Appropriations (and former Senate Agriculture Committee Chair) Thad Cochran of Mississippi, and current Senate Ag. Chair Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

Third: Estimates of savings from the administration proposals should be considered ultra-soft. Farm subsidies trend inversely to farm prices -- before a spike in FY 2005 farm program spending had been trending down because agriculture had had a couple of very good years.

Fourth: Most farm program spending is technically entitlement spending. That means it isn't subject to annual line-item review in the Appropriations Committee. Farm bills, reauthorized every five years now, set the terms under which subsidies can be paid. The Bush budget tampers with this at the margins -- it doesn't fiddle with loan rates or price targets, just the payment limits and the across the board cut. It still will likely run into the objection that the rules shouldn't be revisited until the next farm bill, in 2007.

Fifth, and finally: The key question I have is whether Bush has proposed farm spending cuts because he wants to say he proposed them, or because he means to fight for them. My guess, frankly, is the former. You don't go along with a free-spending Congress for four years and reverse course without some serious preparation -- recruiting allies, preparing deals -- in advance. I don't see evidence of much preparation of that kind from the White House. It looks to be as if a fairly arbitrary number was assigned to USDA by the White House, and the department worked out with OMB a package that would meet that number. This doesn't mean I disagree with anything on the budget's list, quite the contrary in fact. I don't fault Virginia Postrel for calling on conservatives pundits to step up to the plate on budget nuts and bolts either. I'm just saying spending cuts don't get done by administrations that aren't willing to fight for them, and I don't think this one has much fight in it.

Zathras, I expect you are correct that this administration hasn't the mettle for this fight, but as voters and taxpayers we can at least try to hold their feet to the fire.

Having grown up on a ranch, I have to agree with you. We are generally a flexible ranch; depending on the market, we change what we do. At one point we ran a calving operation; for some years we ran a backgrounding operation; and now we're buying short-term cows, calving them out, selling the calves as day-olds, and selling the cows to slaughter. We adjust with the market.

Though we don't have subsidies, subsidies on wheat in our area affects our operation greatly. Because of subsidies, farmers in our area can afford to pay far more per acre to rent land, thus pushing the few ranchers out of potential hay and pasture land.

A lot of people don't understand the degree of corruption in the subsidy programs, either. Let me explain.

Shortly after we purchased another quarter of land, my father attended a meeting in town about subsidies, as half the land we bought was planted to crop. (We have since changed it to hay production.) The government agent at the meeting told the farmers present about a new subsidy available to farmers who "stored" their grain in a neighboring county. (It didn't have to be produced there, just stored.) Immediately the farmers began asking what constituted "storing"--some hoped that they could merely set up a couple of bins, run their grain in, load it back on their trucks, and qualify for the new subsidy.

*That* is why I am against subsidies...it props up a corrupted ag system and distorts the economy for those who are outside the subsidized areas.

OK, stupid questions; if we're going to have subsidies, why not try and get some social engineering done? What about targeting subsidies at more environmentally responsible farmers, maybe those that use less nitrogen-based fertillizers and pesticides? Or maybe organic growers that don't use growth hormones and such? And see if we can't prop up small farms-I know that in my area running a working farm that isn't a large scale operation is a losing proposition. Maybe propping up smaller farms could preserve rural land and culture, reduce sprawl...

OK, feel free to tell me why I'm an idiot. And I understand and sympathize with the libertarian sentiment, but when you see Wal-Marts springing up all over the place, the Shenandoah River lower than it's ever been in living memory due to increased water usage, rapidly increasing traffic, your friends and neighbors forced out of the area they've lived in for generations by commuters driving up real estate prices...well, I'm ready for some intervention of some sort.

bryan, ag subsidies already are an attempt at social engineering, and like most such efforts they are ineffective and fraught with unintended consequences. It's a moral and political hazard I would prefer to avoid.

If folks don't want Wal-Mart in their town, they can make their opinions known to local government. You're far more likely to succeed with that (see here for a local example) than you will through the feds.

OK, stupid questions; if we're going to have subsidies, why not try and get some social engineering done? What about targeting subsidies at more environmentally responsible farmers, maybe those that use less nitrogen-based fertillizers and pesticides? Or maybe organic growers that don't use growth hormones and such? And see if we can't prop up small farms-I know that in my area running a working farm that isn't a large scale operation is a losing proposition. Maybe propping up smaller farms could preserve rural land and culture, reduce sprawl...

OK, feel free to tell me why I'm an idiot. And I understand and sympathize with the libertarian sentiment, but when you see Wal-Marts springing up all over the place, the Shenandoah River lower than it's ever been in living memory due to increased water usage, rapidly increasing traffic, your friends and neighbors forced out of the area they've lived in for generations by commuters driving up real estate prices...well, I'm ready for some intervention of some sort.