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Farmers call for disaster
Published Monday, October 12, 2009
VIDALIA — Sometimes, disaster can be very subtle.
This season, the farming community hasn’t had to endure a hurricane or other significant storm event, but they’ve lost just as many crops to a stretch of drought and then a stretch of rain as they would have to a storm.
The drought killed off many of the summer crops, and the rains that fell during much of September and early October have delayed harvests to the point that the crop quality and yield has been reduced to dismal levels.
“Many of the crops have had an adverse effect from the weather,” Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain said.
“It’s the second year in a row it has been pretty tough.”
That’s why Strain sent a letter to the governor requesting him to contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeking a disaster declaration.
The declaration would allow farmers to participate in federal assistance programs.
The governor has honored the request and sent a letter to the USDA, and now the state agriculture department is waiting for an answer.
“We will be gathering further information over the next week or two to look at the specific data, and we expect that more than 50 percent of the parishes in Louisiana will qualify for federal assistance, either from drought or the rain, or from both,” Strain said.
A provision in the most recent farm bill requires that a disaster declaration be made within 90 days of an incident, and that’s why Strain said he made the request now, to get the declaration during the 90-day window for the drought.
“We wanted to be sure all of the parishes eligible would be included,” he said.
“We are going to do everything we can for the farmers.”
Comments
Posted by NAMVET (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 9:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Can't wait for all of the negative blogs !!!!!
Most of the people that are going to blog
and badmouth our farmers need to understand
that about 3% of the people in our great nation
feed the other 97% !!!!! Think about this and
then badmouth these folks, but don't do it
with your mouth so full !!!!!!!
Posted by Crakalakin (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 9:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
And that 3% "feed" the other 97% out of the charity and goodness in their hearts right? It's not a private business or anything, right? That's why they are begging for Uncle Sugar to step in right? Sounds to me like the government is doing the "feeding" and propping up select businesses. I've got news NAMVET, I feed myself and my family. Saying farmers feed us is like saying auto manufacturers drive us. No, they provide a product that we buy, if we are so inclined, then we feed or drive ourselves. You know like in a free country.
When my pay gets cut, I don't get to go running to Uncle Sugar to cover my losses, not that he would anyway. When my business goes down, I don't get "subsidies". They just simply don't exist for the rest of us.
I'm sorry, but less-than-ideal farming weather is NOT a disaster. Calling it a disaster is nothing more than word games to get at government money. Welfare is all this is.
Posted by been_there (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 10:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Farmers are one of the few businesses that rely on the buyer to "offer" what they will pay for their products. If the costs of fertilizer goes up it's the farmer's problem. If weather produces a bad crop, it's the farmer's problem. I hate to tell you, if the farmer goes out of business because he can't make a decent living, YOU will not have anything to eat!!
Posted by Teach4Peace (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Amen been_there as I am not at all PRIVY to milking my own cow, etc. Yeah, if I HAD to do it, I suppose I could do anything when driven to, but until then, I'd like to thank goodness for farmers!
Posted by rushinghjr (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 11:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Support the American Farmer and the Industries that support them! If you don't, who will? The wealth of the U. S. was born on American Agriculture and the American Farmer and their Families!
Posted by Hardcorps (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 11:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
rushing old boy I fully agree with you. The "good ole" days when a man could take 40 acres and a mule and make a living for his family have gone. This is sad. The huge corporations like ConAgra have all but replaced the small farmer.
I remember both my grandfather's farms. They are nothing but pine trees now. Unless a person has several thousand acres, a couple million dollars worth of equipment, good buyers, and great weather, he may as well go gamble at the boat.
Posted by Crakalakin (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 2:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Posted by rushinghjr-
Support the American Farmer and the Industries that support them! If you don't, who will? The wealth of the U. S. was born on American Agriculture and the American Farmer and their Families!"
I agree 100% but right now the "industry" that supports them is the United States Government, i.e. American tax dollars.
Essentially, we taxpayers pay for the luxury of having "small farms" in America. They already can't make it without government help. Think the auto bailouts were so bad? We bail out small farmers continuously and have done so since the Great Depression. The result is that it has completely jacked anything that even resembled a free market in the farm industry.
Why is a farmer so much more noble than a cobbler or a blacksmith? I still have shoes and metal. These aren't made by the little guy because it is cheaper and more efficient for a big outfit to handle it. Subsidies to keep farms alive may be nice and all but I'd rather the government not use tax dollars to prop up failing businesses. Car makers or corn growers.
The big farms are taking 70% of the subsidy money anyway thanks to laws that were intended to help the little guy. That's what happens when you start letting government be your sugar daddy. Stuff gets screwed up. We are in the recession we are right now because government subsidized the housing market with nothing but paper.
Posted by livingitup (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 3:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Subsidies to keep farms alive may be nice and all but I'd rather the government not use tax dollars to prop up failing businesses."
No, you're right! Let's just send our tax dollars out of the country every time we have to import products that can be grown or made here. That makes a lot of sense!
FYI: Just so there's no confusion...that was sarcasm!
Posted by swampfarmer (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 4:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Whenever people see "subsidies for farmers", they mostly think bad thoughts about all of this money that farmers are getting. The media reports about the farming corporations that a getting millions of dollars. I will try to explain it. If a small farmer plants 1000 acres of cotton, he will get a subsidy depending on his history of production in the past. If his land didn't do well, his subsidy is lower. If he is a good farmer, and is on good land, his subsidy might be higher.
If a corporation farms 30000 acres of cotton, his subsidy is figured the same way as the small farmer. But his money will be a lot more because of the size of his farm. It has nothing to do with a Bill Gates type being a farmer!
Farmers are at the will of the market. All we can do is try to sell our product when the price is good. Then you have to be concerned about the basis that the buyer is going to take from you. We have no control over that, but can "book" the basis when the best time is. Only, you never know when that is.
There are groups of investors that can put millions of dollars into soybean futures and make the market move fifty cents in one day, then sell the beans and make a $500,000 dollar profit right away. That is power, and the farmer has nothing to do with it. Supply and demand is mostly gone, except at certain times.
The price of one sack of soybeans or corn or cotton has gone over ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Then we have to pay a technology fee just to be able to plant the seed. Farmers can't just go somewhere else to buy seed, because all of the seed companies are the same.
The percentage of farmers in the US is below 2% now. And the main difference in my eyes between farmers and other industries is this. Most other industries can charge their customers whatever they want for their product. Farmers have to rely only on what we can get.
The seed costs more than it used to.
Fertilizer costs more than it used to.
Insecticides cost more than they used to.
Herbicides cost more than they used to.
Machinery costs more than it used to.
The price that the farmer receives is not much more than it was twenty or thirty years ago.
Posted by steve_o (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 5:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The price that the farmer receives is not much more than it was twenty or thirty years ago"
And why is this?
The price of produce at the stores, clothing made of cotton,
lumber from a tree planted years ago for a nickel(?) have certainly risen from 20 yrs ago!
Why have they continued to rise but yet you make no money?
What of the farmers that are paid to grow nothing, to keep levels down and prices up?
People have to eat and have clothes. Farmers have there part in fulfilling those needs. But if you can't make money from it why do you do it?
Posted by southernwoman (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 6 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Farm subsidies are handouts - in many cases to the wealthy.
Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 7:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Mechanized farming practices and the factory in the field concept keep the prices for food low so low that those who use hand agriculture or foreign farmers who are limited to hand agriculture cannot make a living from them. Government subsidizes this effort and runs it, not just for our markets but for world markets.
On top of that the government subsidizes and manages some crops so that the prices are artificially even lower. That so we can use these products as manufacturing components. So we make tortillas unaffordable in Latin America so some congressman can point to a corn ethanol solution that does not even really address fuel shortages.
That puts many people out of a job or makes their markets chaos. So we expect people to get a different job in places where there are no real jobs but agriculture. The result is widespread poverty in agricultural countries that are open to world markets and world prices. If they are not open we criticize them and penalize them.
That is just one way we impoverish the world so our manufacturing based economic models of agriculture can work for those of us who have the capital to drive corporations.
When Americans stand up to bring the farmer into the economic reality of free enterprise by eliminating agricultural aid, subsidies and their negative effect on world food markets I will begin to believe the free enterprise rhetoric. Until then it is baloney designed for the gullible and for profit taking. IMHO of course.
Posted by swampfarmer (anonymous) on October 12, 2009 at 9:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There are no farmers that are paid not to farm. That was a program that was around 25 to 30 years ago and has since been phased out a long time ago.
The price of end products certainly has risen from twenty years ago, but as I said above, all of the inputs have also risen greatly. Fuel is another thing that the cost has risen drastically.
The difference between then and now is this. Lets say that 20 years ago it cost $80/acre to grow soybeans, and you made $250/acre in profit. Then you take out the landowners share of 20%. The farmer made pretty good money.
Now it costs $150 to $200 per acre to farm, and the $250 is STILL the profit, then take the landowners share out and the farmer is stuck with whatever is left over.
That was then. This is now.
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