GRASS IN REVIEW

GRASSROOT INSTITUTE OF HAWAII

Nurturing the rights and responsibilities of the individual in a civil society.

WEEKLY GRASS IN REVIEW -- April 9, 2008

Farm This Out
By Deroy Murdock

If America’s farmers faced economic ruin, one might argue seriously for the $286 billion in agricultural subsidies currently before Congress. But as today’s farmers enjoy sky-high incomes, this bill’s advocates soon may explode into laughter while pleading for the perennially doomed “family farm.”

In fact, agricultural prices, profits, and property values all are up dramatically, some at all-time highs.

Washington cannot control inflationary factors like petroleum prices or Chinese and Indian food demand. But ethanol mandates, subsidies, and import tariffs are within Uncle Sam’s grasp, and farmers are benefiting from the federal corn-ethanol bonanza. On March 25, corn had climbed 41.1 percent versus one year earlier. Soybeans have soared 73.6 percent, while turning wheat acreage into corn fields helped catapult wheat 126.5 percent.

Farmers respond that fuel, seeds, and other inputs are costlier. True, yet net farm income grew 48.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, from $59 billion to $87.5 billion. Did you get a 48 percent raise last year? Since 2002’s $73.5 billion Republican-led agro-bailout, farm profits have rocketed 118.2 percent, from $40.1 billion to last year’s $87.5 billion.

Also, farmland prices have risen 78.5 percent, from $1,210 per acre to $2,160, since 2002.

Meanwhile, this bounty’s recipients usually are not the “family farmers” who inhabit our popular psyche. The legendary “family farm” is largely as quaint as Grant Wood’s 1930 painting, American Gothic. While mom-and-pop farms remain, most U.S. agriculture involves corporate mega-farms rather than pitchforks, barns, and overalls.

“Fifty-one percent of agricultural subsidies go to ‘commercial farmers,’” says the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl. “Commercial farmers’ have an average income of $200,000 and an average net worth of $2 million.” Riedl cites the Environmental Working Group’s indispensable database: Between 1995 and 2005, farm subsidies reached the Fortune 500’s Westvaco ($534,210) and John Hancock Life Insurance ($2,849,799), and such charity cases as Ted Turner ($206,948), David Rockefeller ($553,782), Rep. John Salazar (D., Col., $161,084), and Senator Charles Grassley (R., Iowa, $225,041). Scandalously, such legislators subsidize their own farms. Like a modern day Marie Antoinette, Grassley told MSNBC’s Tom Curry: “I don’t think any consumer ought to be complaining about the price of bread when they’re willing to pay $4 for a gallon of water.”

Family farmers who still exist thrive.

Ethanol-fueled grain prices are funding Albion, Nebraska’s roughly 2,000 residents’ increasingly posh lifestyles. “New McMansions are sprouting up,” the Wall Street Journal’s Julie Jargon recently wrote. Heartland Jewelry just opened an Albion branch. “Farmers have a lot of money to spend,” said corn and soybean farmer Jerry Carder, who bought a 2008 Mercedes-Benz ML 350 for $40,000. Corn and soybean farmer Brad Beckwith purchased a $339,000, 4,000-square-foot house last August. He added a flagstone patio, a hot tub, and a 65-inch TV.

Conversely, many Americans who fantasize about five-feet-wide TVs fret about rising grocery bills. Between March 2007 and this March, NBC found, a loaf of bread is up 11 percent. A gallon of milk costs 26 percent more, while a dozen eggs rose 40 percent.

Restaurant checks are climbing, too.

“Every time something happens with corn-fed beef, it just about kills us,” laments Laurel Rainwater, who runs an eponymous San Diego steakhouse. He tells me he has watched beef prices grow 20 percent since 2006. “I am afraid to raise prices, because people aren’t going to keep paying them. But I don’t know what to do. Beef is the highest it’s been in history, and I have been in this business for almost 50 years.”

And then consider the Third World. Along with rising oil prices and tight crop supplies, federal farm policies expand developing nations’ food bills.

As MSNBC reported March 14, the United Nations World Food Program’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, told the European Parliament Development Committee in early March, “high food prices have created an urgent situation throughout many developing countries and have directly hit WFP’s ability to respond to those needs.” Since June, steep corn, wheat, and soybean prices have slashed WFP’s purchasing power by 40 percent. “Fragile democracies are feeling the pressure of food insecurity; food riots have erupted throughout the globe…from Cameroon to Burkina Faso to Indonesia to Mexico and beyond.”

In short, Congress shakes down taxpayers (many in foreclosure) for $286 billion to subsidize farmers already in cornucopian bliss. Their record crop prices, in turn, fatten supermarket and restaurant tabs, which squeeze taxpayers’ wallets yet again. Frightfully, these factors stir Third World hunger and chaos.

If this were Bourbon France, citizens would be at the gates of Versailles, justifiably screaming for justice.

Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution. He is a member of GRIH’s Board of Advisors.

TRY OUR BLOGS
Use these links to access various topics.

Dash of Calabash>>>Blog Archives>>>Examples of the Unintended Consequences of Govt Regulation

Dash of Calabash>>>Blog Archives>>>India World’s Second Largest Mobile Phone Market

Dash of Calabash>>>Blog Archives>>>Someone’s watching! Pretend to be decent!

The Mystery of Hawaiian History>>>Blog Archives>>>Recognition of the Republic of Hawaii by Austro-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Chile, China, France, Germany/Prussia, ... (more)

The Mystery of Hawaiian History>>>Blog Archives>>>Liliuokalani’s Abdication and Loyalty Oath

Read what others have written or add your own thoughts by clicking here.

LIBERTY NETWORK

1. Board Member and Treasurer Cliff Slater had an article published in Hawaii Reporter on 4/7/08: "Vancouver Sky Train is Not Profitable, Despite Honolulu Council Member's Claim."

2. GRIH Senior Fellow Michael R. Fox had a few articles published recently in the Fox Energy and Environment Reports section of Hawaii Reporter:
   • "More Failures of Wind Energy", 4/6/08
   • "When 'Science' Isn't Science", 3/29/08
   • "2008 International Conference on Climate Change: An Intellectual Feast", 3/17/08
   • "Global Warming Politics," 3/7/08

   Mike Fox also republishes articles by other scientists and journalists.  Use this link to visit the Fox Energy and Environment Reports section of Hawaii Reporter.

3. The Koch Associate Program has extended its deadline to April 13 for those interested in a year-long paid full-time work and education (Market-Based Management) program in Washington, DC.  Recent graduates or not-so-recent graduates may apply.  Use this link for more information on the program.  In order to get the extension, you must mention SPN (State Policy Network) in the online application.

4. On March 26th, HB 2974 passed the Hawaii Senate, 21 - 4, with all four Republicans voting no. Earlier, the eight GOP members of the House were the only no votes when the bill passed 43-8.
   
   HB 2974, also known as the "Card Check" bill, changes the way employees become unionized. In the past a secret ballot election was required.If the law is changed, employees would fill out cards indicating their desire to join a certain union, and if a majority were collected, all the employees of that employer or a subgroup of employees would become unionized and the union could begin contract negotiations. This bill affects most agricultural workers in the state, small (< $50K annual sales) non-retail businesses; smaller retail businesses and restaurants (< $500K annual sales); small non-profit organizations; small day care centers (< $250K annual revenue); hotels, motels apartments and condominiums with less than $500K annual revenue; small taxicab companies (< $500K total annual revenue); small law firms and legal aid programs (< $250K gross annual revenue); smaller art museums (< $1 million annual revenue); small colleges, universities and secondary schools with less than $1 million annual revenue; small newspapers (< $200K annual revenue); and any other workers covered under the Hawaii Employment Relations Act, Chapter 377, HRS.
   
   The Honolulu Star Bulletin and Hawaii Reporter have covered the story. The Hawaii Employers Council, the AFL-CIO blog, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), and the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (4/2/08) have either posted items on their blogs, issued some kind of alert or come out in favor or against. The Governor has said that she will veto the bill, which could become law without her signature very soon. She needs to know how you feel. Email governor.lingle@hawaii.gov. If you support a veto, the votes are there to override. You should contact your state legislators.

5. The www.LUV-Hawaii.org website was the subject of the main message of the January 16 Grass in Review. Since then, over 220 people have signed the petition and over 150 have posted comments. A few of the comments were published in Hawaii Reporter on 2/8/08, 2/23/08, 3/1/08, 3/11/08, and 3/29/08.  Please read them and sign the petition if you have not already done so. The comments are anonymous and cannot be viewed on the LUV-Hawaii website at this time.
   
   If you have not already signed the petition or gone to the website to learn more about it, please do so today.

UPCOMING EVENTS

All of the Institute’s events, research publication dates and speaking engagements are available on our website.

1. The Small Business Hawaii Awards Banquet will be held on Friday, May 9th at the Waialae Country Club.  The awardees include:

• SBH Business Person of the Year -- John Garibaldi, Hawaii Superferry, Inc.
• Civic Leader --Victor Lim, McDonald's of Hawaii
• Young Entrepreneur – Bernadette Baraquio, Just a Girl Productions

The banquet will also celebrate the new SBH Educational Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.  There will be a silent auction, prizes, entertainment and a special speaker.  Tickets are $100 per person and are tax-deductible in part.  Call Darlyn Evangelista at (808)396-1724.

2. The 2008 Preserving the American Dream conference: "Preserving Freedom and Mobility"
May 16-18, 2008 in Houston, TX

GRIH will be co-sponsoring the sixth annual Preserving the American Dream Conference in Houston (Omni Hotel near Galleria District) on May 16-18, 2008. Registration is $249 regular or $175 student and low-income. There is an optional lunch and tour of Houston on Friday the 16th (8:30 am – 4:30 pm) for $25. Last year’s attendees really enjoyed the tour of San Jose.

For more information or to register, please visit the American Dream Coalition website.