A Crisis of Faith and Farming in Rural America
and bad weather. Texas, Oklahoma, and Dakota farmers suffered an extreme drought in 1998 with losses exceeding $6 billion. The record reveals the development that really makes the nation's breadbasket nervous is not the dreaded bad weather but low prices. Farmers are not complaining of a bitter harvest, but of a bountiful one. Corn, wheat, livestock and other commodity prices are down an average of 20 percent this year. When farmers are permitted to plant and raise whatever they wish, whenever they wish, and produce for the market, not for government, then food supply is secure and prices are low. In the early 1980s Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute declared, "The period of global food security is over. As the demand for food continues to press against the supply, inevitably real food prices will rise. Farmers do believe people across the globe still go hungry, but not because of inadequate food production, but because of competition and international market forces. Since 1970, experts declared, per capita food output had grown by nearly one-third. The paradox of modern-day agriculture is that farmers often do better when yields are low, because prices are high. But for many farmers, low prices mean higher real incomes. There is no question, furthermore, that foreign economic problems have reduced substantially U.S. farm exports in recent years as well as severe weather conditions in the past five years. Farm crisis in rural America manifests itself in other pertinent venues of corporate and government intervention as well. There are, for example, ignored environmental and health costs from the air pollution and greenhouse gases that accompany fossil fuel burning. It is widely known that cancers and birth defects have resulted from pesticide use on industrial farms. In the United States, for instance, 80 percent of adults and 90 percent of children have measurable concentrations of pesticides in their urine. This is just one of many indications of the long-term health costs of a system of agriculture hailed for its ability to produce “cheap” food. Subsidies to farmers, which are routinely attacked as a trade barrier when provided by another country, generally support the largest farms, including corporate farms. This is done more so for the “big boys” rather than small family farms. Statistics reveal that roughly 85% of the farm subsidies given by the US government goes to the biggest 20% of its farmers. Clearly, a high proportion of government support comes in the form of export subsidies, which does nothing to help farmers that sell to local markets. In addition, a major concern shared by many in the nation is that the government's approach to genetically modified foods is still governed by the "food at any cost" approach. Farmers have mixed emotions about this issue because they desire healthy crops, but not at the expense of the nation’s health. The crucial questions government and corporate America must answer is: “What long term studies have been made to evaluate the consequences of growing herbicide and insecticide resistant crops? [next page]