U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler sympathizes with tea-party activists who gripe about government spending. At the same time, she and her husband have collected around $775,000 in federal farm subsidies during the last 15 years.
What allows Hartzler to hold these seemingly incompatible positions? A false reality, for one thing. "We do participate in the government programs, like probably 95 percent of farmers do," the congresswoman told The Hill in a recent interview. In fact, most farmers do not receive direct assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to data collected by the Environmental Working Group, only 38 percent of U.S. farmers collected subsidy payments in 2007. The money went mostly to what the EWG terms "plantation scale" operations.
From 1995-2009 the largest and wealthiest top 10 percent of farm program recipients received 74% of all farm subsidies with an average total payment over 15 years of $445,127 per recipient -- hardly a safety net for small struggling farmers.Hartzler Farms, in Cass County, falls into the category of large and wealthy. Most of the money that Hartzler and her husband, Lowell, received were subsidies for corn, soybeans and wheat; together, the crops accounted for more than half of the payments the USDA made.
Hartzler tells The Hill that she's open to the idea of cutting farm subsidies. A member of the House Committee on Agriculture, she's in position to do something about it.
The Hill interviewed Hartzler as a part of its New Member of the Week series. An evangelical Christian, Hartzler wrote a book about campaigning "God's way." The piece in The Hill begins with a story Hartzler tells in the book: At age 9, she decided to pursue a life in politics while communicating with God and making mud pies.
Hartzler talks about heeding the call to serve. Of course, the notion that God taps conservative Christians to seek office raises questions about all those moderates and liberals who do the same. Here's Hartzler's explanation for the ascension of Barack Obama:
"I believe that President Obama is here for a reason, but that doesn't mean that he has to stay there next year. The American people have an opportunity to have a say and so I think we just have to do what we think is right ... and see what the outcome is. God's got a plan."So there you have it: God wanted Obama to be president for one term. But probably not two.
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The subsidies have little to do with food for humans. Corn and soybeans are grown for livestock feed. Subsidies keep prices cheap for ADM, TYSON, SMITHFIELD and sell a lot of product for Monsanto and Big Oil.
What we need are sustainable agriculture policies where there are safety nets rather than the LDP and crop insurance scam operated now. Enforcement of the stockyards and packers laws would help as well.
South America pretty much supplies our fruit and vegetable needs.
Want to know how much your neighbors are getting in farm subsidies???
http://farm.ewg.org/
True, some regional areas -- like the corn belt, or say MO vs. NV would have higher concentrations of subsidized farmers than others. For example, in MO, 58% of farmers did not collect subsidies
http://farm.ewg.org/region.php...
Nationally, just 4% of American farmers have received 74% of the subsidies since 1995.
Thanks, don! But for the purposes of your statistics, what is considered a farm? What is the minimum requirement?
I dislike farm subsidies too -- I even have your search page bookmarked. But my suspicion is that among farms of a particular size (in this region maybe those greater than 800-900 acres) the participation rates are far higher than 38%. Of course, I'm not sure if the USDA has the acreage numbers to share.
Well those stats come directly from USDA, who we FOIA the data from, and who incidentally pay out the subsidies, too.
That's not the point. The point is that Hartzler has been accepting farm subsidies while at the same time complaining of government spending and supporting draconian cuts to other programs and subsidies. Hartzler has been accepting farm subsidies while at the same time complaining of government spending and supporting draconian cuts to other programs and subsidies.
To paint the farmers as the bad guys here is wrong. In a true Supply-Demand capitalist system of food production, you will have Surplus and Shortage. Do you really want Surplus that is wasted because we can't sell it fast enough overseas? And worse .. do you really want Shortage that would cause starvation and high food prices HERE? Farm subsidies even that out a bit.
It's a corn-and-soybean-ghetto in the Heartland. Big Time Operators reap the bulk of the monies. What farm subsidies do is prop up poor farmers.
When the price of corn soared they started plowing up the Sand Hills of Nebraska. Just to reap a crop and then get paid for taking it out of production. The harm to the land will never heal.
All the farm subsidy money goes through the farmer into the bank accounts of Monsanto, ADM, Big Pig and Big Oil.
Farmers are the American Indians of the 21st Century.
I don't particularly like Hartzler, but be skeptic of the EWG figures on only a third of farmers taking subsidies. If you look at farms sized such that they can nearly support themselves: say, no less than 800-900 acres in this region. You'd discover that the vast majority take farm subsidies.
I do think, by the way, that farm subsidies should be means-tested, especially since some of these subsidies are in the form of set-asise programs where farmers are actually paid to furlough their land.
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