LesRiley.net

Setting aside for a moment whether or not the government should be involved in agriculture ( you would be hard pressed to prove to me that it should), let us consider the US Dept. of Agriculture ( USDA from here). I would argue that this is actually an example of a government program that works, but the question is " works for what?".

What we're sold is that the goals of the USDA are to help family farmers, strengthen rural America, and ensure an economically viable/ environmentally sustainable agricultural sector.

"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442

If these are the true goals, then the USDA has been an absolutely colossal failure. The number of true family owned farms continues to plummet. Rural America is withering except in places where they are becoming more urbanized are have the temporal benevolence of multi-national corporations & our leviathan government. EVERY commodity that is subsidized and micromanaged to keep prices high and oversupply down have low ( sometimes artificially low) prices & mountains of carryover. There is very little opportunity for young people in rural America in general & production agriculture in particular -- so not only does an aging and tired farm country lose it's brightest and best hopes for the future, but family ties and tradition are being left for refuse as the young move on for "bigger and better things".

If the goals of the USDA are as stated above, how can I say that it is a government program that works?

I believe this is true because I don't believe that the altruistic goals of "helping family farmers, strengthening rural America, and ensuring an economically viable/ environmentally sustainable agricultural sector" are the USDA's main functions. In fact, it is hard to believe that this big of a mess could be made if not by design. . .

Am I saying this is a conspiracy? Not exactly. Am I saying that every employee of the USDA & every politician that supports ag programs has some dark intent? Certainly not. I have many friends and know of many more good folks that work for USDA . . .

Industrialize/ centralize ag while either depopulating the countryside/ small towns or making them less independent. The Ninth Plank of Karl Marx' Communist Manifesto calls for :

While liberty-loving men like Thomas Jefferson believed that a free and prosperous America would be built on an Agrarian culture made up of small family farms, is one of the goals of USDA, American farm policies, and large agribusiness to industrialize & centralize food production while either depopulating rural areas or making small towns like miniature versions of big cities ( dominated by corporatism/ statism, dependant upon outside forces for their economic sustenance and with a bland McCulture that looks much like any other McTown)?

Politicians, central planners, petty tyrants, and corporate barons hate & fear the liberty-loving, independent culture that springs from a countryside covered with a large number if diverse, family farms; small dependant businesses; self-sufficient small towns with locally owned banks & businesses. They are the ones who appoint the leadership & write the checks behind USDA -- why would they not use their influence to use their agenda ?

Likewise, when thriving, locally-controlled small towns, with locally owned businesses, & surrounded by a large number of family farms on a land base controlled by local families, people tend to have their loyalty, their concerns, and their interest dominated by the multigenerational & organic building blocks of society. ( i.e. family, church, local community, common interests, etc). However, when small towns are dependant upon outside forces ( particularly state & federal government & corporate interests) then family ties and the love of hearth & home is weakened. Natural patriotic love for country morphs into a bastardized nationalism that is loyal to government; national news & the "global economy" become increasingly important in people's lives; how successful folks are in their career & finances takes the place of what sort of neighbor & family member they are; people have to be more mobile & spend more time away from home -- therefore natural ties become less important.

As this happens materialism, entertainment, self fulfillment, and self-gratification become more prevalent. Temporal relationships are the norm -- and human relationships are used for "what can I get out of this". All that remains is the individual & the institution -- government, corporation, etc.

Could one of the goals of the USDA, agribusiness, and the power/ money that control them be to ensure an overabundance of cheap food and centralize control of this cheap food as much as possible? Why would anyone want to do such a thing? What could it provide those who would rule?

"I think it's important to recognize the difference between economic development and community development. A new Wal-Mart coming into the community might be considered economic development by some people. Economic development according to the USDA is a job for a bankrupt farmer. "
--Mike Callicrate, a St. Francis, Kansas cattleman

There are certainly a number of other agendas that lurk beneath the surface, that overlap & overrule farm policy, but rather than continue to detail them, I hope to now show how farm policy has had a devastating affect on the very people & places it allegedly is designed to help.

Again, this in no way means that the majority of those working for USDA or other related government/ private entities are not well-meaning. It is important to note here that many of the policies and trends that I will name below are not strictly under the jurisdiction of USDA or strictly ag related. Trade policy, monetary policy/ system, bureaucratic regulations, foreign aid schemes and other such broad areas have often had a much more devastating impact on rural America & the farm economy than the mere efforts ( or lack thereof) of USDA. However, since the people who have made these decisions worked for and were appointed by the same politicians it is no stretch to say their agenda are closely linked.

If the powerful & corrupt people wanted to reduce the number of farmers, depopulate the countryside, destroy localism, centralize land ownership and gain control of a large quantity of cheap food to use as a tool how would they go about it?

Set aside for a moment your notions that the American people in general & American farmers/ their rural allies would not fall for such an agenda or that it could not be marketed in such a way that both the general & farm populace would not only buy into it, but demand it.

When the USDA was formed, America was largely a localized, family/ community centered Agrarian nation. There were certainly advocates of centralization, nationalism, and internationalism as well as pockets of heavy industrialism, but by and large across the South, the Midwest, the Plains, and the Far West Jeffersonian America had borne fruit.

However, with each and every wave of new farm programs to “help farmers” the number of farms sharply declines. With each high-minded effort at rural renewal there is another long line of rusty, unused cotton gins & grain elevators; boarded up feed mills and aging communities stripped of their youth, vibrancy, and hope. Each program aimed at reducing oversupply has resulted in mountains of low-priced grain & fiber the “market rate” for which is far below their cost of production. Making each succeeding generation of producers who try to hang on to the family farm more dependant upon government, outside income from corporations and heavy debt loads.

This is not a recent trend. It has been going on consistently for over a century. The only possibilities are that the people running such programs are remarkably stupid, insane, or that they ( and/ or the people above them) like the results and want to see them continue.

Farm costs are at all time highs, while commodity prices are at record lows. In a non-manipulated economy this would mean land prices would be down & opportunities for young, innovative people to break into farming would be around every corner. This is not, however, the case.

Farm subsidies have kept land prices artificially high. Incredibly, some programs are even written (designed?) in such a way that non farmers in far away cities, can buy land, take it out of production, and pay for the land/ make a profit by not farming it. What then happens to the local farmers? What happens to the businesses, churches & communities that were supported by these farmers?

The if a section of land has crops or livestock raised on it by a local farmer, he is going to need equipment, feed, supplies, etc. His family is going to buy goods and services to live on. When he makes a profit, local banks, businesses, & organizations share in the benefit.

If this land, on the other hand, is taken out of production & some investor or hunter in 50 or 100 miles away very little of the greatly reduced income from this land remains in the community where the land is locates. It is not just the farm economy that dries up & the children of the farmers who leave, but the whole small-town economy supported by the farm & the families in the area that lose.

BEFORE anyone accuses me of being naïve or claiming this is merely “market forces” at work, remember, the issue here is government programs that make it easy & profitable to take land out of production.

The most egregious example of this is the “CRP” ( Conservation Reserve Program). In my view, this is one of the more wicked, communistic, & local-community destroying programs that the USDA is involved in. For those of you who don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, the CRP & its cousin “WRP” ( wetland reserve program) takes “marginal” & “highly-erodable” farmland out of production. The federal government pays landowners (in confiscated funds) a market rate rent for ten years ( or more if the landowner “re-ups”) to not raise crops or livestock and instead to plant trees or native grasses ( BTW: the government normally pays for most the planting of trees/ grass as well). This is a portion of the Farm Program that is popular with environmentally-minded taxpayers, because it is supposed to cut erosion, improve water quality & wildlife habitat (and possibly cure athlete’s foot).

However, the net affect is that it takes thousands of acres that could be producing food & fiber; opportunity & income for young farmers who can’t buy/ rent prime land; and a millions of dollars for local economies.

Heavy regulation (& the high costs thereof) of the meat industry has led to an unprecedented consolidation. As late as the 1980’s the countries three largest meat companies controlled only 15% of the market. This situation has more than completely reversed itself over the last two decades so that now these three companies control in excess of 85% of the market.

Other than harming a few areas’ economies locally & giving less of a market to livestock producers why

should this matter? Wouldn’t this mean more efficiency, more buying power, and easier oversight -- therefore a cheaper, safer meat supply? Only on Mars or in the isolated academic world of economists. The fact is that this less competitive environment has made our meat cost more for less quality & variety. Beyond this, food safety issues and bio-terrorist threats are much more amplified if a handful of packers are selling 85% of the meat to a handful of national grocery chains.

Things like mad cow, e-coli, and bio-terrorism are easily contained to a very small area in a world of hundreds of country meat packers dotting the countryside.

On the other hand, the only response available with a centralized, highly-regulated meat supply is to install layer upon layer of ineffective, draconian bureaucracy. The latest of which is a little known effort called the NAIS ( National Animal Identification System) which seeks to register every head of livestock in the country & keep them in a database. Mom & Pop cattle operators & Grandmothers with a folk of laying hens could be heavily fined for non-compliance.

We can’t find, count or keep up with 12 million plus illegal aliens in a time of war & terrorism-- how can they propose to find the resources to count horses & pigs?!?

I have run on much longer than I planned in what was going to be a short essay. Rather than trying to tie up all the loose ends, connect all the rabbit trails, or otherwise lengthen this on to book level, I will ask two closing questions & offer what I think are the beginnings of some answers.

Consider how Robin Hood farm programs do violence to free market & wreck local economies in favor lawyers & bureaucrats AND how these USDA programs along with trade, regulatory, & monetary policy speed trend towards nomadic populations, centralization, and away from Jeffersonian principles of localism & agrarianism that were the seedbed into which Christian culture planted its deepest roots for liberty & prosperity.

If I am correct, the demise of the American farmer, rural America, and our formerly agrarian culture has been either by devious design or Herculean incompetence. Either way, the net affect is the same & the bitter fruit is being borne.

We have been fed for several generations the lie that Big Government & Big Business were at odds with one another that we could either blame one or the other & take our stand as “conservatives” or “liberals” based on which of these tyrants we allied ourselves with. The reality is that these two behemoths work hand in hand to oppress freedom, individuality, & localism. The family, the church & the real, natural, organic institutions of human community are in the bulls eye of national & multinational institutions & the elitists & bureaucrats that run them.

Likewise, this is not about large scale farmers vs. small family farms or organic/ alternative ag vs. conventional or even the free market that often leads to bigger & more efficient operations that are more specialized.

Among all the myriad of permanently entrenched, politically powerful federal agencies that deserve to be eliminated, USDA is far from being the worst. However, it might be one of the easiest targets. Once people can understand that : a) long lasting government programs can be closed ( they are not eternal by nature); AND b) life goes on without one of these agencies ( and likely would immediately prosper. The concept of freedom & responsibility might actually creep back into their consciousness to the point where some other agencies might be found to be dangerous or at least unnecessary.

Take your hand out of your neighbors pocket. You do not have a right to his property or hard earned money. If you want the beast killed, you have to stop feeding it. Before you can stop feeding it, you must reduce your dependence upon it.

5) Work towards de-regulation & de-centralization in general . Privatization is best, state and local ag programs are preferable to a Federal Department that would make Joe Stalin do a double take at its size & scope.

. . . . Get to know your consumers & form alliances with them. The people who buy your food & care about their environment are not your enemies. They are your customers. The people who are driving you off your farm and into the poor house are the politicians & their minions who write & run farm programs; international agribusiness; and the Wal Marts of the world.

You are not going to find solutions by repeating the mantras of Al Gore, Rush Limbaugh or Tom Brokaw. Neither will solutions be found by writing your congressman or going to see the county agent (even if they‘re pretty good guys).