The global unfair trade practices that hurt American farmers and ranchers every day aren’t exactly state secrets, despite claims by opponents of agriculture who blindly argue that they don’t really exist or matter.
American wheat farmers lose close to $1 billion in revenue each year because certain countries are violating trade rules under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, according to a new study.
USDA forecasts that when all is said and done, American farmers will have a combined farm income that is less than half of what it was just two years ago. This alone is staggering. But it may well mark just the beginning of a depressed farm economy the effects of which may very well adversely impact the entire sector and cascade across other sectors of our economy.
Nearly a decade ago, the World Trade Organization found the European Union guilty of violating trade rules. Since that ruling, the EU has implemented radical changes to its sugar policy. But, will those changes help further free trade and lead to a subsidy-free system as some in the EU are claiming?
The critics of U.S. farm policy should feast their eyes on a new study that puts into perspective what America’s farmers are up against on the global market. While the U.S. made sweeping reforms and cuts to farm policy in the 2014 Farm Bill, its competitors were busy ramping up trade-distorting subsidies for their own producers. For some countries, support price levels for certain commodities have increased by more than 100 percent over the last decade, according to the report.
The nations in question include Brazil, China, India, Turkey, and Thailand – all member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The report, which was sponsored by U.S. commodity organizations including the USA Rice Federation and is an update of a 2011 study, explains that “these countries are major producers, consumers, and in many cases, exporters of agricultural products, the effects of [their] policies are felt globally.”
Much has been made about the President’s FY2016 budget and its proposed cuts to the risk management tools on which farmers depend. In fact, leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have been critical of the budget for its attack on crop insurance, and lawmakers recently received a pointed letter on the subject from…
Last week, newspapers in two different and diverse regions of the country featured editorials on the importance of crop insurance, which highlights how it has become the risk management of choice for farmers nationwide. Steve Baccus, a family farmer from Kansas and the former president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, wrote in the Wichita Eagle that…
The merits of having a strong farm policy, including risk management tools like crop insurance, are many times overlooked, dismissed, and even criticized by the leading papers and media outlets of the day. Instead, the critics of farm policy are given far more opportunities to rail against our nation’s secure food supply and the people…
“The farm – best home of the family, main source of national wealth, foundation of civilized society, the natural providence.”
One will find these wise words inscribed on the façade of Union Station in Washington, D.C. The historic site was built around the turn of the century when the nation was experiencing progress of every kind. There was industrial capacity, oil production, telecommunications, a major transportation system in the form of railroads, and most importantly, there was agriculture. The U.S. had established itself as a major agricultural producer on the world stage not only because of newly invented tools like mechanical reapers that improved crop harvests, but also because of westward expansion, which increased the diversity of American agricultural production.
Today, more than a hundred years later, that quote still captures the essence of American agriculture and its importance to the progress and success of our country. American agriculture remains diverse; it remains a source of national wealth and the pride of American families.
In true Ebenezer Scrooge-like fashion, opponents of farm policy used Christmas Eve as a workday to criticize the men and women who helped put holiday meals on tables from coast to coast. The attack came in the form of a Dec. 24 Wall Street Journal op-ed penned by Bruce Babcock and Vincent Smith, and…
Months after receiving preferential government loans, farmers in India soon will be allowed to walk away from their debts without repayment of either principal or interest, according to a Dec. 9 article by Bloomberg. The outlet explained how some in the India agricultural community are using the free money to expand at a time…
Matthew King, a farmer from central Ohio, recently took to the editorial pages of the Columbus Dispatch to defend America’s current farm policy. And he gave some real-world perspective on the skin-in-the-game farmers have in today’s system. “In 2013, our farming operation’s crop-insurance premium totaled more than my wife’s annual salary as a local…