By Farmer X WASHINGTON (July 17, 2007)—According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), my operation received about $110,000 in farm program payments in the 2005 program year—a lot of money by many standards. The insinuation of this is that we are rich farmers, rolling in the dough provided by hardworking American taxpayers. Nothing could be…
DetailsBy: Jeff Nunley Recently, one of my neighbors in town was complaining about our U.S. farm program. He made the statement that he wished the government would subsidize his income, like it did for farmers. My response was that our farm program did subsidize his income. How? By keeping food costs low. This frees up…
DetailsWASHINGTON (July 11, 2007)—The German Marshall Fund put out a press release on May 3 that proudly proclaimed, “Dan Morgan, former staff writer for the Washington Post, has joined the organization as a Transatlantic Fellow.”1 Morgan was quickly listed on the German Marshall Fund’s website as an ag policy expert2; he started writing a column…
DetailsThe Vietnam veteran from Erath, Louisiana, and his father were slowly increasing the size of the 100-acre farm that Charles’ grandfather started. Jerome, Charles’ young son quickly fell in love with farm life. The Guidry team was good about keeping costs low, and the prices they received for their crop seemed fair. Their world was…
DetailsMany Americans wrongly think that farmers are uneducated and not tech-savvy. When it comes to Barry Evans, a cotton farmer from Kress, Texas, nothing could be further from the truth. Barry is an early adopter of the latest farming technology, such as remote sensing, and he reads any article or study he can get his…
DetailsFor more than 200 years, sugar production has been a way of life in southern Louisiana. Locals say pure sugarcane pumps through the heart of the region, and tales of great-grandfathers working in dew-glistened cane fields have filled coffee shops for generations. For proof that sugar is interwoven into the very fabric of the state,…
DetailsTheresia Gillie is sick of the stereotypes of women on the farm. She doesn’t wear an apron all day, or can her own jams, or spend hours on end jotting down recipes. Theresia runs a 2,600-acre wheat, soybean, and sunflower farm with her husband, Keith, and her son, Bryce. She’s responsible for the farm’s budgeting,…
DetailsWASHINGTON (June 19, 2007)—An investigation by FarmPolicyFacts.org into the new Environmental Working Group (EWG) farm subsidy database has uncovered a dirty little secret that radical environmental groups likely hoped would never surface. Former Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen, mega-lobbyist Gerald Cassidy, and many other wealthy subsidy recipients in EWG’s database are only there because they…
DetailsBy: USA Rice Federation Every day we see a steady stream of propaganda about U.S. farm subsidies being responsible for the myriad ills associated with world poverty. With the farm bill on the Senate floor, we’ve seen editorials in newspapers and magazines—even church newsletters—addressed to members of Congress, declaring that farmers be stripped of the…
DetailsST. LOUIS, MO – While Brazilian officials were in Geneva arguing that U.S. subsidies were depressing world cotton prices, the Brazilian government was busy selling government-held cotton stocks on the Brazilian market in order to lower internal Brazilian cotton prices according to USDA reports. “The actions of Brazil’s own government in April and May of…
DetailsWASHINGTON (June 7, 2007)—Every member of the U.S. Senate today received a handbook highlighting the billions of dollars in subsidies foreign agricultural producers receive around the world. The research, compiled in the Guide to Foreign Crop Subsidies and Tariffs, shows that compared to other major global producers—developing and developed alike—the U.S. ranks near the bottom…
DetailsBy: Bryan Hest, Steve Williams, Jerry Demmer Farming does a lot more than just put food in our bellies and clothes on our backs. It literally is an economic engine that drives America. Most people are shocked when they learn that the food and fiber industry employs 20% of the country’s workforce and contributes $3.5…
DetailsBy: Norm Knochel I recently saw a clever bumper sticker in farm country that read, “If you like foreign oil, you’ll love foreign food.” It’s brilliant because it makes you think about something most people take for granted—feeding ourselves. Unlike Americans, Europeans don’t take dinner for granted because they knew starvation and food shortages after…
DetailsA recent New York Times article, “Catfish With a Side of Scombroid,” informed readers that: “…the salmonella frequently detected in Asia-farmed fish came from fecal bacteria in the grow-out ponds. The fish, in other words, were bathing in human and animal feces.” Given the influx of negative newspaper headlines like this, it’s no surprise that…
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