Food, Inc.

[Buster52]

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Ah! But chickens are omnivores and can live their entire lives on grain and protein. Cattle can't. They are ruminants and only eat grain when it is forced on them.

And the reason cattle are only kept in a grain fed operation for a limited time is because their stomachs would explode if they are fed corn longer than a few months. As it is the poor things are riddled with ulcers by the time they are slaughtered, anyway.

A cow's stomachs aren't built for corn. They are built for grass.

I will take your word that in your area not all cattle are sent to CAFOs at a young age. All I can go by is what I read and what the company president said at a particular CAFO in Colorado in the film *King Corn. According to the fella, in order for farmers to make a profit, they have to send them there. It is actually cheaper to feed cattle on corn than it is to feed them on their natural diet of grass.

Because corn is heavily subsidized by the government and therefore cheap.

*Another great one, by the way. If folks enjoyed Food, Inc., they will probably like this one as well.

My cows are on pasture and free choice hay at all times, grain is not forced upon them.

But in a CAFO, it is.

And that's the point.

 

[Katy]

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Nope. My involvement with agribusiness is limited to that of a concerned and somewhat informed consumer. I did grow up on and worked in various dairy farms for a good part of my youth, though, so I'm not a total novice to farm life and business practices. I do know a bit about cattle and pigs.

I am actually a librarian by trade...

Which means I have ready access to an awful lot of information most folks don't even know exists.

And my question to you is, do you only know about and have opinions on things with which you have direct involvement?

In any case, you have pretty much confirmed what I have read about the link between government and agribusiness, so even if I am poorly informed about the industry, I was at least right about that.

And you can call me Buster. All my friends do.

I was just curious about your connection...if it was hands on or just as a consumer. No, I don't think you have to be directly involved in something to have some knowledge about it, but I do think that unless you are involved there's going to be an awful lot of the details we have no clue about.

Just because something is in print doesn't make it true!

I never said there isn't a connection between the government and agriculture, but to say that a farmer can't plant what they want to because of a government mandate is not true.

There are not many jobs that a person lives 24/7 and is totally 100% intertwined with your lifestyle. Farming is one that does. I'm not talking about giant corporation farms....but those of us who are still a family farm. I just get really tired of people who think they are informed, but most often aren't, thinking that all we farmers are sitting back collecting government payments and getting rich. There are still those of us who make our life and living on the land because we want to, not because we're getting rich off of it.

 

[Wifezilla]

Katy, farmers like you aren't the problem...THESE guys are...

"two-thirds of American farmers don't even receive subsidies. So where does all that tax money go? Mainly to large agribusinesses and the richest family farmers. In 2003, the most recent year for which comprehensive statistics are available, the top 10 percent of all subsidy recipients gobbled up 68 percent of the money, and the top 5 percent got 55 percent.

Take, for instance, Riceland Foods in Stuttgart, Arkansas, the largest single recipient of farm welfare. In 2003 it received $68.9 million in subsidies for producing rice,
soybeans, wheat, and corn--more than all the farmers in Rhode Island, Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, and New Jersey combined.

The second-largest recipient of farm welfare in 2003 was Producers Rice Mill, also in Stuttgart, Arkansas, which received $51.4 million. The agricultural welfare rolls also include many Fortune 500 companies, such as Archer Daniels Midland and International Paper, plus corporations most people don't associate with farming, such as Chevron, Caterpillar, and Electronic Data Systems."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/36207.html

"The real action is at the top of the farm subsidy food chain, where 10 percent of the recipients—just over 305,023 individuals, partnerships, corporations, estates and myriad other entities—took in 72 percent of the total payments taxpayers provided for conservation, commodity and disaster programs over the 9 years. (That's an upward tick of 1 percent in concentration for the top 10 percent over the eight-year analysis EWG presented last year.) They collected, on average, $309,823 each, roughly $34,000 annually. The elite in this world of government dependency collected even more. The top four percent of recipients, for instance, number just over 122,000. Yet they cost taxpayers about $65 billion over 9 years, which works out to an average of $529,000, or nearly $59,000 per year."
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/whatstheplan.php

"The largest annual subsidy, called direct and countercyclical payments, is given to farmers regardless of what crops they grow — or whether they grow anything at all. The Post found that, since 2001, at least $1.3 billion was paid to landowners who had planted nothing since 2000. Among the beneficiaries were homeowners in new developments whose backyards used to be rice fields. "

"A 2002 program aimed at helping those facing a serious drought gave $635 million to ranchers and dairy farmers who had moderate or no drought. Some ranchers got money because they lived in counties declared disaster areas after debris fell to earth from the space shuttle Columbia. The program was created to help a Republican candidate for the Senate. It included $34 million for catfish farmers"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/interactives/farmaid/

 

[Buster52]

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For the record, I don't believe it was me who said that. And I haven't seen the film, so I don't know if it says it or not.

 

[Katy]

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Oh I agree that there should be exclusions for the big mega corporation farms. Problem is most people consider anyone who farms as one of the bad guys and lump us all together. Paying those kind of operations was not what the farm programs were designed for back when they first started. I also think for every dollar of off-farm income that should be a dollar you lose in payments. The new farm bill if they ever get anything passed deals with some of those issues. With caps (still outrageously high in my book) that apply to who gets payment money.

For whoever is calling it farm welfare I think they need to look at this chart....they're right...the majority of the money does go to welfare although it isn't the farmers who get the money...it goes to foodstamps!! This list is the breakdown of where the current farm bill money goes to. I listed it earlier in this thread, but I'll repost it here.

I've listed this before, but here is the break down on where our tax dollars (yes, my tax dollars too) that fund the farm bill go.

3%...rural development
6%....research, inspection, & administration
2%....International
11%...Conservation & forestry
19%.... Farm & commodity programs (these are the payments farmers get)
59%.... Food assistance

So as you can see the majority of the money doesn't even go to the farmers growing the food!! It goes for food stamps!!!! Personally I think the next time around they should call it the Food Stamp Bill...not the farm bill!!!

 

[Katy]

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For the record, I don't believe it was me who said that. And I haven't seen the film, so I don't know if it says it or not.

Yes, you are right, it was Brunty_Farms, who made that statement.

 

[Buster52]

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Setting aside the indisputable fact that America already is and always has been a mix of socialist and capitalist economics...

It is precisely because of the above that makes me scratch my head why this isn't a bipartisan, liberal+conservative issue. I think folks of all political stripes should be able to get together on restructuring how government interacts with agriculture and big business. It is picking winners and losers among farmers: you grow this, you win. Grow that, you lose.

Very puzzling, really.

 

[hikerchick]

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Not all of us, Katy. What I have learned from my interest in this topic is that smaller family farms are the victims of agribusiness. I think it is a tragedy that smaller farmers can't make a decent living while huge corps have almost total control over our food supply.

My tiny contribution to the solution has been to support a local famer by buying a CSA share. (Community Supported Agriculture.)

 

[Buster52]

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I bought a small farm and started raising and growing my own food. That isn't helping the small local farmer that much (although I do try to patronize them), but at least I'm contributing less to the problem.

 

[DuckyBoys]

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Ya know, it is funny that recently I have had the exact opposite experience. I inspect large corporate farms for the state of Colorado and recently there was an "expose" on the hog farm insustry on HBO showing horrible cruelty and conditions. They "claimed" that this was happening because it was "so large".

They had 7,000 hogs.

Now, perhaps they have never seen a "large" hog farm, and in that case, maybe 7,000 hogs IS big to them.

But I deal with farms that have hundred of thousands of hogs.

That is 100,000+ animals.

So 7,000 animals is small potatoes. Plus, the "small" farms are not regulated. The big ones are. By me and a small core of very specifically qualified individuals at the state level. I visit every single one and perform hundreds of inspections every year.

What they say about the hog industry is simply not true for the VERY large multi-international producers that I help regulate. It just isn't. And that includes Smithfield. In fact, they looked better this year than any other year I have inspected.