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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] How To Ruin Organic Farming
  • Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:23:02 -0700


http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/how-to-ruin-organic-farming/
How To Ruin Organic Farming
In Gene Logsdon Blog on January 28, 2010 at 8:25 am

This is supposed to be good news. Our dear government has finally recognized
that organic farmers are at least as deserving of bribery as all those sinful
chemical farmers. After all, industrial agriculture gets $17.2 billion
dollars in direct payments every year so surely a little bit of money ought
also to go to holy, humble, horse and hoe husbandmen who also help keep the
world from starvation. In fact, organic farmers now have their very own farm
subsidy program under the Environmental Quality Incentive Program to the tune
of $50 million bucks. Ain’t that wonderful?

I will go as far out on the end of my bucket loader as I can and bet even
money that this is the beginning of the end of organic farming. Government
learned a long time ago that farmers, like everyone else, can be persuaded to
do what the government wants done by handing out money. The result? Since
government subsidy programs got serious about 70 years ago, the number of
commercial farmers has plummeted from over 12 million to something less that
one million. That’s how helpful the payments have been. Then along came small
organic farmers who although unsubsidized for the most part, began doubling
and tripling in number with each passing year. Whoa. Can’t have that, for
heaven’s sake. That might mean that government subsidies don’t really help
farmers. Maybe, perish the thought, government doesn’t know how to help
farmers. Or, perish two thoughts, maybe government doesn’t really want to
help farmers but just wants cheap food so the people can afford to buy more
SUVs. Any trend toward farmers becoming successful without government
subsidies has to be stopped. Uncle knows how to do that. Offer them money.

If you think I am only joking, examine the rules of this new game. The fifty
million dollar “Organic Initiative” subsidy is to help organic farmers, and I
quote, “implement conservation practices on the farm.” Hmmm. Isn’t every real
organic farmer already doing that? Isn’t that part of any proper definition
of organic farming?

Rule number two: “Conservation practices that farmers have already adopted
are not eligible for payment.” Amazing grace. If you have already been doing
what every responsible farmer should be doing, you don’t get any money,
sucker. This isn’t the first time for this. A few years ago I learned about
another government giveaway under the Conservation Reserve Program that paid
farmers who stopped cultivating land next to creeks and rivers. Great. I had
taken my creekside acres out of cultivation years ago. I triumphantly stomped
into the Natural Resource Conservation office, and gleefully applied for my
payment. The girls in the office, who must daily endure frustrated farmers
grudgingly applying for their farm welfare payments, studied me over the rims
of their glasses, wondering if it was safe to give me the bad news. They read
me the rule: “Conservation practices already adopted do not qualify.” If I
wanted a CRP payment, and I’m not joking now, I would have to plow up my
creekside land, put it to corn for two years, and then put the land back to
pasture! (This particular rule has been changed since then although not
completely.)

Rule number 3: “Only organic and transitional farmers are eligible for
Organic Initiative payments.” Aha. Pretending great solicitude for organic
farmers, the government has finessed its way into being the arbiter of who is
“organic’ and who is not. All of us involved in organic farming know how in
the past the government has been partner to several attempts to water down
organic rules to help large-scale farmers qualify. Now organic farmers will
be more willing to go along with government definitions because they are all
on the take. As for “transitional,” I am reminded of the alcoholic who
insists he is going to quit drinking and to prove it, he now skips his usual
brace of triple martinis on Sundays.

And finally, rule number 4: The NRCS ranks applications for Organic
Initiative bribes on the basis of “predicted environmental impact.” Obviously
the bigger the concentrated animal facility or the cultivated grain farm, the
more will be the predictable impact if the situation is improved. Guess who
will get the lion’s share of the money. Get big or get out. Goodbye, organic
farmers.




  • [Livingontheland] How To Ruin Organic Farming, Tradingpost, 01/28/2010

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