You have to hand it to the National Association of FSA County Office Employees (NASCOE). While nearly everyone else is calling on the private sector to do more and the government to do less, NASCOE is proposing to expand the role of government by urging Congress to end the highly successful private sector delivery of…
As a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture I can attest to the fact that farming is indeed a risky business. News reports out of USDA’s Risk Management Agency underscore that point all too clearly: With some 15 percent of all crop insurance claims yet to be processed, crop insurance companies have…
Given Bloomberg News’ expertise in financial markets and the U.S. economy, their editors’ unexpected attack on one of America’s few fiscal success stories came as a big shock. Agriculture—and by extension, America’s food and fiber supply—isn’t worth much government investment, Bloomberg’s editors surmised in a January 30 opinion piece. Try telling that to the 21…
Agricultural leaders representing most major crops convened January 31 and February 1 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the 2012 Farm Bill. Hosting key policy staff, administration officials, and industry experts, the groups gained a new depth of knowledge on which to build their discussions. From the meeting, there was a consensus that the agricultural community…
Agriculture is a unique industry in so many ways. One particular way—it is perhaps the only area of the federal budget to have shrunk in the past 10 years, yielding cuts even as it was coming in under budget. Funding for farm policy over the last five years (’07-’11) averaged $12.9 billion per year. This…
With claims still streaming in — only an estimated 81 percent of expected claims have been finalized — crop insurance companies have already paid out a record $9.1 billion in indemnity payments to America’s farmers in 2011. This has already surpassed the former record of $8.67 billion in indemnities paid in 2008, according to USDA’s…
Western Sugar, a company now owned by farmers, closed its Goodland, Kan., sugarbeet factory in 1985. Sugar prices were low, the cost of doing business was climbing, and tough decisions were made that hurt workers and farmers. The Kansans who lost their jobs weren’t alone. From 1985 to 2008 low sugar prices remained stagnant as…
Opponents of U.S. ethanol—Brazil, Big Oil, and multinational food conglomerates looking to drive down farmer prices to boost their own profits—have a tendency to blame the alternative fuel for just about everything. And just when we didn’t think it could get more absurd than the off-the-wall argument that American corn farmers are to blame for…
As the United States Congress begins debate of the 2012 Farm Bill, America’s biggest competitors on the global marketplace have been steadily increasing their rates of subsidization, according to a study by DTB Associates. And one of the biggest offenders is also one of the biggest agricultural superpowers and biggest critics of U.S. farm policy:…