THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 132, July 13, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WHAT EXCUSE FOR THE NEW FARM BILL?
By Dennis T. Avery
CONGRESS, SPECIAL INTERESTS, & U.S. AGRICULTURE POLICY: FARM BILLS & THE FARM VOTE -- FEDERAL
MANDATES ON ETHANOL & THEIR IMPACT ON FOOD SUPPLY & FOOD PRICES -- THE ORGANIC FOODS MOVEMENT, FEDERAL
SUBSIDIES FOR ORGANIC FARMING, & THE PUBLIC INTEREST -- THE MASSIVE EXPANSION OF FOOD DEMAND IN THE
DENSELY POPULATED COUNTRIES OF ASIA & THE NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE REFORM THAT WILL ENABLE
AMERICAN FARMERS TO COMPETE FAIRLY IN SUCH COUNTRIES AS CHINA & INDIA, WHERE INCOMES ARE SOARING
FULL STORY:
The Congress is trying urgently to write a new farm bill, but it can’t think of an excuse for passing it. The cold reality, of
course, is simply that half of the U.S. Senate is elected in states where the farm vote is significant, and neither party wants
to lose an election because of a few unhappy farmers.
Until recently, the Congresspersons could always claim that farmers were “underpaid,” and that farm prices were too low.
But, in recent decades, the average farm family has been earning more than the average city family, even when the return
on the farmers’ investment in land and machinery is included in the calculation.
Moreover, crop prices today have already been inflated by the new federal mandates on ethanol. Corn prices have shot up
from less than $2 per bushel to nearly $4 in the past year or so, and Midwest economists warn that the expansion of
ethanol refineries suggests corn at $4.50 per bushel in the near future. This, of course, will drive up the consumer costs of
meat, milk, and pet food. Corn has already attracted acres from such competing crops as cotton and wheat, and farmers are
seriously thinking about draining wetlands and clearing woodlots to get more cropland.
President George W. Bush has called for at least 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2017, and, so far, we have only
corn to fulfill the mandate. The dream of ethanol from cellulose is still a dream. Since corn produces a net gain of just 50
gallons worth of gasoline per acre per year, and the demand for gasoline is more than 134 billion gallons annually and
rising, ethanol represents an almost unlimited demand.
Predictably, the organic movement has offered its own farm bill, pushing to subsidize more organic farming. Unfortunately,
there is no evidence that organic food is safer or more nutritious, and the organic farmers refuse to use the soil-safest
farming systems — low-till — because they require herbicides. Worst of all, the yields from organic farms are little more
than half as high as conventional yields because the organics refuse to use nitrogen fertilizer, and thus must grow their
own nitrogen as pasture and green manure crops. Land that is growing nitrogen is not growing much food. The European
organic payments were legislated in a period of heavy farm surpluses, when Europe wanted less farm output, not more.
Let’s face it, the only rationale for writing a new farm bill is because the farmers expect one. We’ve had farm bills
continually since 1932, whether we needed them or not. The last time the Congress wanted to jack up the cash being
mailed to farmers, they based it on periodic bad weather in North Dakota. When has there not been periodic bad weather
in North Dakota?
For more than 20 years, I’ve been talking to U.S. farmers about the massive expansion of food demand in the densely
populated countries of Asia. I’ve been demanding the kind of serious trade reform talks that are going on right now,
under the aegis of the World Trade Organization, so American farmers would be able to compete fairly in such countries
as China and India, where incomes are soaring.
The world will need more than twice as much food per year by 2050, to support a peak population of perhaps 8 billion
mostly affluent people and their pets. American farmers will be well-situated to provide a lot of that, if they aren’t selling
all their corn to the federal government at subsidized prices, without making a dent in our “energy independence.”
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior analyst for the United States
Department of State. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming:
Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Readers may write Avery at Post Office
Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email: cgfi@rica.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity