On 12/17/02 11:47 AM, in article ,
"Torsten Brinch" wrote:

So, back to EU Commissioner Fischlers proposal, to cap the subsidy
per farm to no more than 300,000 Euro (~$300,000) a year:

(Senator Chuck Grassley, February 2002, commenting the capping
provisions of the new US Farm Bill):
"In another David vs. Goliath victory, I successfully fought to cap
farm subsidy payments at no more than $275,000 a year. Currently, they
are virtually unlimited in some cases. And studies showed that 10
percent of the farmers in the United States were receiving 60 percent
of the farm payments from the Federal Treasury. Not only does this
erode public support for the farm program, it also undercuts the
intention of the farm safety net."

(Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, commenting the capping decision):
"There's nothing wrong with operators who want to expand beyond the
size of a family operation, but there is no reason for government
programs to support them beyond that level."


I'm fairly sure the subsidy cap was dropped from the bill later.
There was a lot of pressure from the southern, cotton producing states to
eliminate it.
It's tough to write a law to cover U.S. Agriculture, or so the politicians
say. The average Nebraska farm is a little over 800 acres. In Iowa, our
neighbor to the east, the average farm size is under half that.
U.S. politicians must be clones of the British ones. We hear the same
drivel from them about how each is the one who will save the family farm.
It just isn't going to happen. Farms are getting larger and more efficient.
It's a trend that started when the first tractors hit the fields and
continues to this day.
More efficient farming isn't an altogether bad thing. It allowed people
to go from subsistence farming into other things that make life better.


Dean



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