Opinion: Farmers want fair price, not subsidies

US - Unfortunately, dairy farmers aren't like other free-market businesses because the price they are paid for their product is set by the federal government, and that price is woefully short of even supporting most family farms at poverty level, let alone having additional funds to put towards pollution control. The price dairy farmers are paid for milk is about the same now as it was 25 years ago while production expenses have skyrocketed. I'd like to know of any other business that is forced to deal with that economic reality.
calendar icon 18 January 2007
clock icon 2 minute read
The writer goes further to say "farmers already get so many tax breaks, direct subsidies, and exceptions to environmental laws -- in effect another subsidy -- as to be nothing more than welfare wards of the state." The myth that somehow family farmers are the beneficiaries of some huge subsidy paid for by the rest of us needs to be put to rest.

These so called "subsidies" are nothing more than the Band-Aid assistance offered to farmers to placate them so that they will continue to perpetuate the cheap food policy put in place by the USDA so that many of the rest of us can enjoy a lifestyle unencumbered by any significant outlay for such an important basic need like food.

If anyone is being "subsidized" here, it is the American consumer who for decades has enjoyed the fruits of the USDA's cheap food policy while the American farm family tries to eke out a living, working hours unheard of in other industries, and often relying on the labors of their own children to try to make ends meet.

The dairy industry in Vermont is on the brink of collapse and unless the entire dairy price system as orchestrated by the federal government is overhauled, looking to the family farmer in Vermont to pay for pollution control is absurd. Every election cycle, politicians from every major party tout themselves as the friend of the farmer because of their support for the various Band Aid programs that help farmers limp along in economic desperation.

Source: Burlington Free Press
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