Global Food Price Increases

[LuxLiving]

Global food price increases
The cost of food: Facts and figures


Explore the facts and figures behind the rising price of food across the globe.



BBC NEWS | Special Reports | The cost of food: Facts and figures

[sweeps]

Good thing Congress just passed that $289 billion farm subsidy bill!

</sarcasm>

[LuxLiving]

I guess I'm dense sweeps and don't understand your sarcasm in this case. Are you saying that Willy was right all along and we are just now waking up to our need for farmers? Or, are you wishing our U.S. government wouldn't subsidize farmers? Talk slow for the sarcasm challenged!!

[sweeps]

Farmers are making money hand over fist, and we just increased their subsidies. It's a pretty sweet deal if you're a farmer.

[LuxLiving]

Farmers are making money hand over fist, and we just increased their subsidies. It's a pretty sweet deal if you're a farmer.

I'm not a big fan of subsidies myself, but "Farmers are making money hand over fist", is, well - a pretty sweeping statement.

That MIGHT be true in a lot of cases, but surely not in all.

How many farm families only survive because the other spouse holds an outside job? How many farm families don't get any subsidies at all?

I do get rather irritated at the fact that many farmers in the U.S. are paid to let much of their land lie fallow! Especially when we see parts of the world that could really use those foodstuffs that could be grown and exported!!

[sweeps]

Yes, there are some struggling small-time farmers out there. But the majority of "farmers" are really gigantic corporations -- making money. A lot of money.

The farm lobby has done a good job of painting this picture of a struggling family trying to make ends meet, but the reality is most farms are now owned by large corporations. They're getting the benefit of skyrocketing food prices, massive subsidies, and tons of tax breaks -- all at the same time.

And as you alluded to, the subsidies have the unintended consequence of making "farmers" acquire more land and do less farming on it, just to earn those juicy subsidies.

[cptacek]

I don't know why they call it the "farm bill" anymore. There was $290 billion allocated in this bill.
- About 66% of it goes to food stamps and welfare. That is $191 billion going there.
- About $30 billion will go to CRP programs. That is, paying farmers to not grow crops. This was a good program when it was enacted years ago...it was limited to highly erodible ground, and highly erodible land should not be farmed. This was a way to get farmers to not till that ground. Of course, they could have instead given subsidies for farmers to invest in no-till instead and gotten the same result. But now, it is just a way for people to buy and pay for land that they don't want to farm anyway. Very, very, very good ground, the best river bottom ground, the kind that is worth its weight in gold, is being put into CRP because the old farmers are getting to old to do it themselves and the young farmers can't pay as much as the government to rent it so they can farm it.

It makes me sick to be looking for pasture to rent for our cows and see acre after acre (or half section after half section) in CRP that is doing no one any good. They say it is good for wildlife, like deer and pheasant. Well, deer like creeks and streams with trees around so they can hide, not wide open prairie. And pheasant, which is an imported bird from China, like milo fields. They for sure aren't in the CRP. I swear, they want to make the entire state of Kansas one big hunting preserve.

The only money going to actual farmers is $40 billion. You can argue that that $40 billion shouldn't go to farmers, and I would like to hear arguments about that, but $40 billion ain't no $290 billion.

One other thing. For a while, wheat futures were $12 a bushel. Everyone was crying out that bread and flour has gotten too expensive! The farmers are making a killing! No more support for them! But since then, wheat is now around $7 a bushel (almost half). Has the price of bread and flour gone down in the past few months? I don't think so.

[cptacek]

Yes, there are some struggling small-time farmers out there. But the majority of "farmers" are really gigantic corporations -- making money. A lot of money.

The farm lobby has done a good job of painting this picture of a struggling family trying to make ends meet, but the reality is most farms are now owned by large corporations. They're getting the benefit of skyrocketing food prices, massive subsidies, and tons of tax breaks -- all at the same time.

And as you alluded to, the subsidies have the unintended consequence of making "farmers" acquire more land and do less farming on it, just to earn those juicy subsidies.

If they capped the amount of off the farm money people could make and still get the subsidies, that would be a HUGE step in the right direction.

Take a look here: EWG || Farm Subsidy Database
It shows who gets the most subsidies in every state. I did some browsing around on the site, and here are some interesting statistics from one page:
• $177.6 billion in subsidies 1995-2006.
• 67 percent of all farmers and ranchers do not collect government subsidy payments in United States, according to USDA.
• Among subsidy recipients, ten percent collected 74 percent of all subsidies amounting to $130.6 billion over 12 years.
• Recipients in the top 10% averaged $36,290 in annual payments between 1995 and 2006. The bottom 80 percent of the recipients saw only $731 on average per year.

My husband and I are farmers. When someone claims "all farms are corporate farms" I want to scream "we're not!" but we are small potatoes.

[sweeps]

If they capped the amount of off the farm money people could make and still get the subsidies, that would be a HUGE step in the right direction.

Agreed! Actually I think that was a proposed amendment, but it failed.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Without thinking through how it fits in here, let me just throw in that yesterday I drove through 140 miles of mid-west farm land that usually grows corn, milo, and soy. It was mile after mile of soggy, unplanted fields. It has been too wet here to plant. I did see a little bit more wheat than I usually have seen around here, though. Rice is grown in the southern end of my state. It would be interesting to see how the fields have been managed with all this excess rain.

[cptacek]

We just had to wait. We were going to plant milo but we couldn't get into them in time to kill the weeds, so we went with soybeans. The rain has been good for the wheat, though!

[LuxLiving]

I haven't watched this yet as I don't have the right player on my computer (will ask Hubster techie to fix it up tonight) but thought others might want to see the trailer and read the info on the farm bill. Please, don't all the Iowans shoot at once - I just ran across the film, I didn't make it.

King Corn

[sidney7]

With these food prices through the roof I have a feeling that places hit hard with the economy like Michigan (highest unemployment in the nation) will start turning back to their roots, farming, and they should be able to make some good money doing it. Think about it, if you're a farmer you're now being paid nearly twice as much for your soybeans as you were just a couple years ago.

[cptacek]

And twice as much (or more) for diesel.
And twice as much (or more) for fertilizer.
And twice as much (or more) for seed.
And twice as much (or more) for herbicide.
And twice as much (or more) for land.

[Akanchawa]

na wahooo food nowadays is very expensive do anyone havee solution to this?