Subsidize them to grow and buy it?
Article
Hidden in plain sight, a federal farm subsidy program is paying nearly $1.7 billion to American agribusiness and manufacturers to buy American cotton that is already one of the most highly subsidized crops in the world, according to figures compiled by the program's critics.
The plan, which is the equivalent of paying Kellogg's to buy American corn, is known as the upland cotton marketing certificate program, and was started in 1990 when American cotton was selling at a much higher price than foreign cotton. Under it, American cotton is, in essence, subsidized twice, with payments going to companies that buy the cotton from farmers. The farmers themselves also receive subsidies for growing the cotton. The program is drawing increased criticism from foreign cotton producers.
This issue of agricultural subsidies is what caused the collapse of the WTO meetings recently in Cancun when some African delegates walked out in disgust.
There's a new book out: The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire. It comes out at a time when the WTO talks have collapsed over the issue of American agriculture subsidies.
Vaguely recalling some of my studies in agricultural pest management at the University of California - Davis ten years ago, I sent Sis this reply:
The cotton industry has been the recipient of some of the greatest corporate welfare we dish out. When i was in school in Davis, we went to visit some of these plantations. They bought thousands of acres of flood plain land from the state for a song because, well, it gets flooded every so often and so you can't develop it. But you can farm it (with subsidized irrigation of course) and make a bundle off cotton most years. They somehow manage to have insurance though (maybe it's Federal? I'll have to look that up) for the off year when they get flooded. I think that might be a technical aspect of the Federal insurance that sets a minimum price on a crop, and if the market doesn’t bring that much, the gov’t makes up the difference. (Our brother got those 'welfare' payments on his corn and soybean crops – and that was always a sore spot when he wanted to argue about poor people on welfare.) So, if you put a crop in and it gets flooded, your yield will certainly be below the minimum price. Not sure about that being the no-risk aspect of being in a flood plain – I'll have to check it out.
They also have the standard government welfare program of getting paid to leave certain acres fallow (soil conservation or something – I'll have to look that up, too). The cotton growers had that one figured out before a cap on the amount of money they could collect was put in place – they took their gov't money not to grow and bought land in Australia on which to produce their crop. They also, just like all other farmers in those fallow programs, set aside land that was no good for growing on in the first place as their fallow acres – so they collected on land that they never would have planted so therefore never would have gotten any yeild from in the first place. (You grow your crop on the good land that you always grew it on, and in addition, collect on something you couldn't have put a crop in!)
Yessirree boys. Walkin’ in high cotton.
Maybe I'll look all that stuff up and post something about it.
Well, I did look up some stuff. And it's very interesting. I'm definitely going to have to check out that book on Boswell.
Somewhere right now somebody is spouting the virtues of the free market system that we have in the Western world. And I hope somebody else is right there to remind him or her that we don't have one. There's no free market in a subsidized economy.
Read what I found about cotton subsidies here.
....or do what you want....you will anyway.
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