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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: sunnfarm AT bellatlantic.net, Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Whole grains and small scale grain production
  • Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 11:24:18 -0500

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 10:34:15 -0400, you wrote:

>Pat. You will be pleased to know that the overwhelming majority of subsidies
>are going to small and medium sized farms. The reason you don't hear much
>about
>it is because news like that doesn't sell newspapers. Go to the USDA site and
>check out the Farm Services Agency page, you will find many programs that
>assist
>the smallest of farms.

(Sorry to be so late answering this.... although someone
else has already answered.)

Unfortunately, what you are saying here just isn't true.
The USDA would probably like you to believe that it's true,
I've little doubt of that. Maybe their stats are presented
in a misleading manner, that wouldn't surprise me.

For example, suppose I have a total of $100 to use in grants
to farms. I could issue 100 grants and give 99 of them to
small farms. Looks good on the face of it, doesn't it? But
it's meaningless.

But each small farmer only got $0.15, and one giant
corporate-owned farm got the remaining $85.15.

Sure, the majority of the grants were issued to small
farms....99% of the grants were issued to small farmers, in
fact.

See below.

Pat

------------------------------------------------------

According to a 2001 report from the U.S. General Accounting
Office, in recent years over 80 percent of farm payments
have been made to large- and medium-size farms, while small
farms have received less than 20 percent of the payments.

For example, in 1999 (the latest year for which data were
available), large farms—the 7 percent of farms nationwide
with gross agricultural sales of $250,000 or more—received
about 45 percent of the payments. The 17 percent of farms
that are medium-sized (gross sales between $50,000 and
$249,999) received 41 percent of the payments. The remaining
14 percent of the payments was shared by the 76 percent of
farms that are small (gross sales under $50,000).

Small farms substantially outnumber medium and large farms,
but because payments are generally based on volume of
production, the average payment of small farms that received
payments was much less. In 1999, these small farms, on
average, received payments of about $4,141. In contrast,
large farms received payments averaging about $64,737, while
medium-sized farms received average payments of about
$21,943.

http://www.newrules.org/agri/subsidy.html

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