Please Quit Helping...

Our Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Purdue, addressed the World
Dairy Expo in Madison Wisconsin, (my hometown, right now that is)
last week, and he could have brought better news.  He told a gathering
of dairy farmers that, and I quote: "In America, the big get bigger, and
small go out.  I don't think in America we, for any small business,
we have a guaranteed income or a guaranteed profitability". Thank
you, Mr. Purdue!  Farming is not just any business, we all eat Mr.
Purdue, and just looking at you, you do your share of eating.

Wisconsin has, for many years, been known as the 'Dairy State', and
with good reason.  The independent dairy farmer has been the
backbone of the state's economy for over a hundred years.  But
things are changing rapidly, Wisconsin has lost 551 small dairy
farms so far this year, as of August 31, 2019. Last year, 2018, we
lost 638 and in 2017 465 dairy farmers gave up milking.  That is
a 37% increase in loss of dairy farms in 2018 over 2017, and lordy
knows how many there will finally be this year.  And much of it is
due to the tariff wars between the United States and China, the
exports of dairy solids to China fell by 43% this year due to those
tariffs.

The sad news is that Wisconsin leads the nation in farm bankruptcies
even though it is eleventh in number of farms.  And sadder yet, is
that suicide among farmers is five times higher than the rest of the
population, figures that have not been seen since the depression.
Much of this is due to the projected rate of return on their farm assets.
the Farm Bureau calculated the rate of return will be 1.3% in 2019,
that is below the ten-year average of 2%.  Last year farm subsidies
accounted for 73% of production returns.  Farmer's think that these
subsidies are hurting more than helping, as family farms are being
bought up by huge corporations.

The Farm Bill lacks the language to keep these large corporations
from taking advantage of the subsidies that were designed to help
the struggling family farms.  Dairy lobbyists in Washington DC,
spent $7.5 million in 2018 to insure their piece of the pie. The top
spender, was Land O'Lakes, a multibillion-dollar Minnesota
agricultural co-op.  They spent $1.3 million alone.

Across the nation, the projected net farm income, in 2019 will
be the third lowest in the past decade, though higher than 2018
which the second lowest in the past decade.  Farming is, and
always has been, a risky business.  In 2018, there was $15+ billion
in agriculture and dairy subsidies, Wisconsin's share of that
was more than $352 million, and of that, $4+ million went to
out-of-state addresses, and $580,000 went to addresses within
fifty miles of Chicago

However, 58% of Wisconsin farmers did not collect any subsidy
payments.  Wisconsin is 16th on the list of subsidies received,
and receives approximately $9 billion or 2.3% of the government
pie, far below its neighbors; Iowa - 8.3%, Illinois - 6.9%,
Minnesota - 5.8% and Indiana - 3.5%.

Trade wars and the stalling in Congress of NAFTA 2.0, have caused
farm markets to plummet, as there is a backlog of normally exported
crops and dairy products.  And all the signs lead toward consolidation
of agriculture and dairy businesses into factory farms, squeezing out
the family-owned farmers who have acted as stewards of the land
for generations.  These factory farms produce waist on a grand
scale and present a real danger to the environment.  The term
'factory farm' is a misnomer, these are not farms as much as they
are large scale productions, and those that operate them are not
farmers, they are producers with a greater eye to the bottom line
than the health and welfare of the animals and the land.

And this is the future that the Trump administration is promising
you.  Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Purdue, you can stop helping
any time now.

I'm just sayin'.