Here is the link to the video discussing farm
subsidies. You can watch the whole thing, or just from 3-3:50, 4:25-5:40, and
6:47-7:20. You will get a better understanding if you watch the whole thing,
and we think that it is a very interesting subject that you all will enjoy to
watch and develop an opinion on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8G1HIlRppo
Farm subsidies began in the 1930s from the New Deal
during the depression and they are still in effect today. Subsidies are
government supplements from taxpayers to ensure that farmers make a steady
income and are able to continue their business. The amount a farm gets from
subsidies depends on what they raise and how the weather was that year. In the
following video, John Stossel goes onto discuss the problems within the
legislation of farm subsidies. Some people think that the subsidies should be
continued or reformed while others think they should be completely wiped out.
At 3-3:50 in the video, Stossel talks about Maurice
Wilder who is a half billion-dollar farmer but still receives subsidies from
the government. Stossel goes on to mention that only the multimillion-dollar
farms are the ones to receive the large subsidy payments. However, small farms
are usually neglected of these subsidies or just paid a small fraction of them
when they are the ones who really need the money to continue their business.
This section of the video shows that the farm bill has many loopholes that rich
farmers can jump through to take advantage of taxpayers and the
government.
From 4:25-5:40 Stossel lists some of the crops that
do not get any subsidies. He also states that food costs more because of the
government handouts, but he doesn't clarify whether the subsidized food or
unsubsidized food costs more. However, either way this still shows that the
subsidies are taking taxpayers money and making their food cost more than it
would without government intervention. The rest of this clip discusses
how the government pays farm subsidies to people who don't farm. One man in the
video was paid $26,000 just for not farming his land. It is interesting that
these people are being paid for nothing, while small farms that are actually
working do not get any or much money at all. This shows that the government
system for assisting farmers is flawed.
From 6:47-7:20 Stossel speaks of New Zealand
abolishing farm subsidies. At the beginning there were many riots and protests,
but in time farm production increased five-fold. This just goes to show that
farm subsidies aren't necessary and countries are even better off without them.
Farmers have come to rely on government money to maximize profit instead of
improving their farming practices.
From the video, do you think farm subsidies should be completely
abolished or more regulated? Can farmers thrive without these government
policies? What if there was a huge drought or flood that caused major damage to
the years crops, how would we survive or eat without them? How would the farm
still thrive and stay in business without the subsidies?
Great choice of topic and great post. I'm looking forward to reading the comments.
ReplyDeleteThere's only so much I can gather on subsidies from a seven minute video but from what I learned I'm not so sure about the program. It seems outdated and not structured very well so I don't think it would hurt to re-structure it and regulate it better. There's no reason that a half-billion dollar farmer is still receiving help from the government. Like the bill says, farmers that make a million and quarter or more a year shouldn't receive any help. However, according to Stossel, the multimillion dollar farms are the ones getting the large subsidies. With loop-holes like this I think it's time to restructure it some more and focus on helping the smaller, family farms that actually need the help.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe, I don't know much more about this topic, but from what I heard it is a very deceiving and flawed program. I think the idea is really great and that we should be helping small family farms, but the video explains how they are not actually doing that. I think farm subsidies should either be more regulated or just removed completely. It seems that in other countries they are capable without them, therefore we should be as well. However, family farms that produce a lot of food and don't bring in enough money should be able to get the help they need from the government. The subsidies should not be going to multimillion dollar farms and definitely not to people who do absolutely nothing, that just seems absurd. The government would be essential to farmers if a drought or natural disaster occurred to keep them from going out of business. Farm subsidies come off to be very complex and need to be used better to benefit needy farmers.
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ReplyDeleteLike Taylor and Joe, my knowledge of subsidies is quite limited, but I feel this video taught me enough to form my opinion on it. Clearly, farmers making anything near the million dollar mark don't really need help of any sort. They're doing well enough on their own without taking our tax dollars in addition to what we need to pay them for food, which would make me want to completely abolish subsidies altogether. There are, however, those farmers that aren't making nearly as much as the other producers who actually do need our help. If we could just revise it so that farmers who make over a certain threshold didn't receive these benefits, I'd be alright with that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/fau/2009/08aug/fau125/fau125.pdf
I was curious to see how much food we actually imported after reading the question about having a drought or flood. We import everything else, right, so how much food do we actually import? I didn't read this pdf in depth (it's by the USDA and 52 pages long...) but I did take the time to examine the graphs. It's interesting to see that there is a substantial increase in imports for every food group. So, although we would find ourselves in a bit of a pickle, I think that we'd actually be surprisingly alright if something were to happen.
Agreeing with the people who commented before me, I can't say that I am too familiar with subsidies and how it correlates to farming. However, I think that the whole system of it seems a bit backwards. It doesn't seem right or just that a multimillion dollar farmer receives support from the government more so than a farmer who is struggling to make ends meet. I think it is wrong that the successful farmers use the government subsidies to maximize their profit, when in reality, they should be improving their farming methods. However, as I stated before, I do not really know a lot about subsidies. I think the whole issue is a bit fuzzy and jaded and there is a definite need for restructure.
ReplyDeleteWhile subsidies may have been necessary 80 years ago, I cannot see how they have a place in today's economy. If a farm is unable to support itself, then it is necessarily for the farmer to change his or her practices, not for the government to step in and cover the difference with tax money. Since these subsidies have been around for so long, people such as Maurice Wilder (the farmer worth half a billion dollars) and real estate agents have been able to find exploits and loopholes that can make them money which they do not need.
ReplyDeleteSome farms which are unable to support themselves may fail if subsidies are repealed. I believe this is necessary though. In order to advance, outdated and dysfunctional practices must be abandoned.
I feel like this is another way that our government is corrupt. The video states that if your running for government in Nebraska, the way to get elected is to support farm subsidies. The subsidies seem to be creating almost a monopoly with bigger farms. In return, this hurts our economy even more; it puts more people out of jobs. The larger farms would stay afloat without the subsidies, but it is almost impossible for the smaller farms to do the same. I think the farm bill needs to be restructured. I find it unlikely that a majority of our crops would be destroyed out of nowhere. Crops are grown all over the pace, and if everywhere was affected by this, then there would be other problems than a shortage of food. Also, I think America has become good enough at finding substitutes for food. We have so many processed foods that we could find enough food to survive, disregarding the lack of nutrition, until the problem was fixed.
ReplyDeleteI think that except for extreme circumstances, farm subsidies should be abolished. Perhaps a way to help the smaller farms could be paying to improve their farming methods rather than just giving them money to keep doing business the way they are in hopes something will change. This way the bigger farms can't take advantage of the government and tax payers' money. Along with pretty much everyone else, I am not an expert on this subject so I do not know if there are faults in my logic. It just seems to me like this would at least be a suggestion worth trying to avoid the loop-holes.
ReplyDeleteI think that the issue of farm subsidizing should be looked at again by our government and it should probably be more regulated. As Stossel and his mustache showed with the example of New Zealand, farms can thrive when the subsidies are abolished by the government. Regardless, I don't believe we should completely abolish the subsidies, but we should regulate them more. This way rich farmers aren't the ones that are getting the money and and the taxpayers aren't paying for land that isn't used for farming.
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar with subsidies and how it relates to farming; I couldn't even tell you what they were in general and in fact had to look it up on google just to understand this topic..So I can't really form a very strong viewpoint based on my limited knowledge of this topic. However, from what I have watched, I thought it was ridiculous that rich farmers (like that multimillion dollar farmer) are receiving support "no strings attached" although they are completely stable financially on their own. The point of these subsidies is to help the smaller farmers and this video shows that these subsidies is not doing this. I don't know if we should abolish the subsidies completely, but rather, reform it, so that it goes to farmers who really need it. In the video, New Zealand is doing perfectly fine without any subsidies. I think that if they can abolish them and still thrive, America can at least regulate them to benefit the smaller farmers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most here that most farming subsidies should be repealed. Like one of the interviewed experts in the film mentioned, these subsidies were established during the depression. That was three quarters of a century ago. This is a different time. Farmers are not panicking. There is no need to retain subsides whose sole purpose was to keep farmers practicing good farming techniques like crop rotation.
ReplyDeleteAs other people have stated, I am also not familiar with subsidies and how they can be related to farming. From the video, I found it alarming that the subsidies were helping the rich multi-million dollar farmers and not helping the small family run farms. I think the subsidies need to be reworked so that the money goes to the right people and places. Rich farmers should not be getting help if they are running a successful business. The government needs to rethink the subsidies because they are helping the wrong people.
ReplyDeleteI think they should be resolved because they just lead to other problems. Because corn is so heavily subsidized and we produce more than we need, we use it as feed for cattle and other livestock that lead to unhealthier meat products. If it is abolished, it would have to be steady, because I feel like a country in which farm subsidies play a large part in the economy such as the US, such a dramatic change would be more devastating that beneficial initially.
ReplyDeleteI kind of take a different view than most people here. I believe subsidies are good because it keeps products domestic. From my understanding, one of the main reasons subsidies are put in place is to keep prices down and competitive with foreign markets. Paying subsidies to a small farmer who wont have much impact on keeping low prices. The multi-million dollar farmers are the ones who are going to be the ones regulating the market, so what other choice does the government have except to pay them subsidies? Yes I believe there is another way to go about helping farmers, but I think abolishing the program all together would just open the market up to foreign farmers which would lead to more job outsourcing.
ReplyDeleteI do find it to be improper for all the big farms to receive the subsidies while the smaller farms get left out. However, I don't think the system will change any time soon. I'm not very familiar with exactly how the subsidies function, but it seems there are not enough faults for it to be changed. It is true that the government is helping some people that don't deserve it, but this system also helps some that do. The system should be re-thought, but people depend too much on the products given to us by large farming businesses. Only small changes can be made like slowly reducing the amount big farms are getting subsidized. The government should be looking for more ways to help out the small farm owners.
ReplyDeleteIt does not make sense that richer farmers still gain subsidies from the government. There should be stricter limitations on getting subsidies because there are some families that farm that need the extra money to keep farming. As long as the farms that need the subsidies continue to keep receiving the subsidies, there will be plenty of crops available to feed the population. But by not providing the farms with subsidies, it would force the farmers and their families to work harder in order to still thrive in the farming industry.
ReplyDeletei believe subsidies are necessary but the way they are going about it now is wrong. The government is wasting taxpayers' money by giving away money to farms who do not need the subsidies to function. It should be reformed.
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