Hammack
Senior Member
I know this is a little -- but I have read so many post on here about farmers loosing money - just check out this link if you think they are loosing money.
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/region.php?fips=13000 Then click on "pick a county" you want to look at then "top recipients" -- just think of almost any farmer you can think of - they are prolly in there.
Do you think the government would step in and help the ones that don't farm out if they didn't make there "quotas" for the yr.?
Don't get me wrong - some of my closest friends and family members are some of the biggest farmers in the county that I live in - and there names are listed in the top ten on this data base - and you gotta do what you gotta do - but don't take any more poor mouthing from a farmer about loosing money!
You are right on the subsidies to a point, but i tend to see if from a different outlook since my business depends directly on farms. What you aren't taking into consideration is the fact that the Gov't DOES NOT allow farms to run on a free market like most business do. They keep there hands in every aspect of it. If they had stayed out of it and let supply and demand take over then there would be no need for the payments in the first place since farms would have been able to sell at a profit or adapt accordingly like most businesses. Just because they are getting paid subsidies for a disaster etc... doesn't mean they are making a fortune. What you see as far as those payments go, and what their NET income is will be dramatically different. The Gov't IS helping a great deal of us who don't farm by making these payments to the farmers. When you have entire areas where an economy is totally dependent on the farms (which there are several of throughout the state) those payments keep businesses going when otherwise they couldn't if that money was not had to put back into the economy.
This thread has gone round and round and will never end. All goes back to what one person feels is ethical the next one won't. There are too many factors involved as to why someone feels something is right or wrong, and the only certainty is that we will continue to disagree. Whether it be hogs, or something else.......